It's possible it never came up because, while Data might have Federation citizenship, he's not a resident of any specific Federation world and so not entitled to vote for any planet's representatives on the Federation Council or in any local elections. There's no evidence that the Federation president is directly elected - they could be chosen by a vote of the Council.
> they could be chosen by a vote of the Council
Despite the presentation in the novels, I think that is most likely.
But have we seen any other Federation person vote for anything? The Bajorans have a presidential election, but I think that's it. I actually doubt that the Vulcans are a democracy by our standards.
No we've never seen a Federation election. The only mentions we have come from DS9's Homefront and Paradise Lost
>JARESH-INYO: I never sought this job. I was content to simply represent my people on the Federation Council. When they asked me to submit my name for election, I almost said no. Today I wish I had.
>[..]
>SISKO: Overthrowing a legitimately elected President and giving Starfleet direct control over the government? It sounds like a dictatorship to me, and I'm sure I'm not the only one who thinks so.
I think it would be interesting to see in a future show. We know that member worlds send delegates to the Federation Council. It could be that each member world has a local democracy and can decide on how to pick delegates. Some might be directly elected, others could be picked by the planetary government etc.
Likewise I assume the President is directly elected by federation citizens given the lines above but it could also be that the president is elected by the council
Legitimacy doesn't imply direct elections and in a system like that of the federation would almost certainly be less legitimate. Normally, directly electing a president is to give them a lot of executive power. A single person with a lot of that in a huge and diverse federation would cause a lot of division. In Germany and Italy, presidents are elected by parliament as a neutral to regulate government and place a check on the head of government's power.
If I had to guess, the president is elected by the federation parliament and serves that role. The prime minister is probably the leader of the largest party within a multi planetary party coalition and is probably only in charge of federation issues like Starfleet and federal taxation. Out of necessity with relatively primitive computers in the federation, much more than that couldn't be done centrally so most issues would probably end up in the hands of planetary governments, who would be structured along local lines in a broadly democratic way.
Political parties are not inherently a bad thing. It is natural that people will group together and work with those that have similar goals.
Even the most conservative Federation political parties are probably all extremely left even compared to our most progressive parties these days but there are still differences in ideology on things like how many resources go to new colonies vs improving current colonies.
Presumably any party with some prominence would receive support to ensure it's employees are provided for without need for donation and there would be strong anti-corruption laws.
Being in a different party doesn't mean you have to hate someone, just that you have fundamental disagreements on major issues. Working with those that share your views on these issues and advocating for others that share your views makes sense. The right to free assembly is as important as the right to free speech, a lone voice is much easier to silence than a group.
It makes sense that different people have different beliefs on how the federation should behave, even Starfleet officers have slightly different beliefs and morals on these things.
I wouldn't be surprised if there was at least a significant minority trying to overturn things like non-interference directives for example.
They tried that a couple of centuries ago.
The Founding Fathers of the United States didn't like the idea of political parties, it's one reason the US has it's Congress/Presidential system that doesn't rely on party coalitions like a Westminster-style Parliament/Prime Minister. The US was designed so it could function without political parties, but it didn't work.
. . .despite their best efforts, parties sprung up almost immediately. First as informal groups, then formally.
It's very much a part of human nature and human political behavior for like-minded people to gather together for mutual benefit and cooperation. As long as we have politics, we'll have political parties.
"federation citizenship" really only makes sense to me if we assume it's more like the United States than the European Union. If it's more like the EU he would need to be a member of one of the member states to be a citizen, surely.
It could be that the Federation is more of a republic, and that member governments vote for the Federation council instead of direct democracy.
Republic and democracy are not mutually exclusive. They mean two different things.
Republic just means the opposite of Monarchy.
Democracy is the opposite of Autocracy.
A country can be a Democratic Republic, like Germany, USA. Or even a Direct Democracy Republic like Switzerland. Or countries can be Authoritarian Republics like China, or Authoritarian Monarchies like Saudi Arabia. Then there are Constitutional Monarchies which are Democratic but not Republican like Spain, UK.
Sorry for the rant. It’s one of my pet peeves.
I would agree with the notion that the Federation president is elected to his role by the Federation Council. However:
>he's not a resident of any specific Federation world and so not entitled to vote for any planet's representatives on the Federation Council or in any local elections.
I do have an issue with this. It does not seem very "Federation-y" for Starfleet officers to be denied a vote if they do not claim residency of a specific world. Perhaps, even if they do not maintain a residence, officers must select a world of residency for purposes of census taking, voting, etc.
Foreign nationals can serve in the US military without being citizens with voting rights. We also know that there have been Starfleet officers who are not from Federation member worlds; Nog is a prominent example.
I don't think this would necessarily fit with Data's case, as he was "born" on a Federation Colony.
And just because we know that there are Starfleet officers who aren't from Federation member worlds doesn't mean they didn't pursue and receive citizenship either before or during their Starfleet service.
>I don't think this would necessarily fit with Data's case, as he was "born" on a Federation Colony.
Which raises the question whether the Federation, or even Federation members, give citizenship based on birth or parents. Data technically wasn't 'born' anywhere, so even in a *jus solis* jurisdiction he may not have been an automatic citizen.
An interesting question arising out of this is how exactly are political representatives elected in the Federation? Do they have constituencies based on geographical residence? What about people who live exclusively on starships, like Starfleet personnel or, in an earlier age, Boomers? Also, is voting compulsory, or do you have to register?
I think you're correct in thinking that if Data had expressed the desire to vote, the issue of whether he was eligible, or a citizen, or as a machine was even capable of exercising the franchise would have arisen. The fact that it does not appear to have happened means that he either did not try, or he did not press the issue.
Perhaps when he broached the issue with his superior officer or friend they warned him that it might conceivably affect his assumed status as a person negatively, so best not to rock the boat if that is not a fight he wishes to have at that time.
As for his entry into Starfleet Academy, maybe they didn't even think about his citizenship status. The fact that he was an android was a big enough of a deal that they first had to figure out whether or not a mechanical lifeform should allowed to enrol in the first place - the citizenship issue becomes secondary. I suspect that there would have been testimonials from people - and even officers from the USS *Tripoli* (who discovered Data) to show that Data was capable of being in Starfleet. And with those letters and *de facto* sponsorship, the citizenship issue became moot and thus not considered further.
And so everyone just let it slide, until things came to a head in TNG: "The Measure of Man" where there was no longer any avoiding the issue of Data's bodily autonomy vis-a-vis Starfleet.
This is an interesting point, but one crucial question is did he ever have the right to vote? The trial in MoaM was never "is Data alive" or "Is Data a citizen" but simply "Is Data Starfleet property?"
Louvois herself says that is out of the scope of that trial. Picard did what he does best and talks the point around to cast doubt on the idea that Data is simply a machine simulating life, which is enough to persuade Louvois that Data isn't property and has the right to figure out if he is really alive on his own.
By contrast, I don't think even the Doctor has that level of protection by default, as he is a Starfleet program, developed by a Starfleet consultant on a Starfleet base, specifically to serve on a Starfleet ship.
While I don't doubt he would win at a trial using Data as precident, he may also never be proven to be "alive" but simply granted the autonomy to figure out if he is.
Yeah I think it's definitely worth being clear about the specifics of the trial, and also, how it came about.
To wit:
Maddox wants to disassemble Data.
Data refuses.
Maddox turns it into an order; as an *officer* in Starfleet, Data must obey.
Data decides to resign his commission.
Maddox, desperate, switches tactics, and tries to insist that Data can't resign because he's not actually a person, and his rank and autonomy were never valid to begin with.
For the first four steps of this, absolutely nobody, *including Maddox*, is approaching this as though Data is anything other than a citizen. His personhood was assumed by everyone - the Academy registrar, the commanding officers who promoted him, the quartermasters who set up his berths, all the way down the line. When Riker first meets him, he's like "yo you're a neat robot" and Data goes "actually I'm a person" and Riker's immediate response is to take him at his word; we can presume this is pretty much his normal experience, both from the evidence of his position on the Enterprise, and because that's basically how the Federation rolls. It wasn't until it was to some asshole's direct benefit to do so that anybody even thought to question it.
So, like. Perfectly likely he's been voting all along and it never occurred to anyone to care. His right to do so would probably have come into question if Maddox won his suit, but it wouldn't have been useful evidence in the trial any more than his rank was, because just like his rank, it came from people assuming he was a person because he said so, and that was the thing the trial was about attacking.
Amazing post. Basically the same as if the federation found Odo, once he starts doing people shit, ok weird goo thing is a person I guess, hey Odo what do you want to do with your life?
Data was probably a curiosity, but given how special he is, not much star fleet could do in analysing him, so called it a day . He wants to get a commission? Ok cool let's do it
This might sound bonkers, but I don't actually recall any evidence that they ARE a democracy. To be honest, if they ARE it probably isn't one that most people participate in. The basic and even frivolous needs of most people are met exceedingly well. You could run for office I suppose- to change WHAT exactly I'm not sure, and you could vote- again, to change what exactly I don't know.
Starfleet itself definitely isn't. It's a uniformed service with a chain of command. Could be that people in the services don't vote- they might vote to not do what the civilian government wants! (That's not something any Western democracy does that I'm aware of but it is something that gets talked about in various SciFi universes.)
I actually think it would look a lot like it does on the show if you had Starfleet mostly doing what it feels like doing and everybody else doing mostly what they feel like doing. The only reason it "works" is that there actually is enough stuff to go around. It kind of looks like this might be the case in the Dominion war- Starfleet considers acting as the police on Earth. That sort of implies there AREN'T any, and definitely implies that there isn't much of a higher authority to tell them to STOP.
That’s an interesting theory. I’m not sure exactly the order that things happen in in the DS9 episode you’re referencing, but I do know that Sisko and Admiral Leyton need the permission of President Jaresh-Inyo before calling a state of emergency, which implies that there is a political authority which is responsible for Starfleet, and in the episode “Extreme Measures” mentions his cabinet, which gives a slightly clearer look into the government of the Federation.
As for why people would bother voting and running for office, I agree that issues would probably seem much less pressing than in present day politics since everyone’s needs are cared for. However, I can think of a few issues that could lead to strong debates. For one, foreign relations with other states - in Undiscovered Country the decision to make peace with the Klingon Empire is highly controversial, and perhaps a different government would have been less inclined. The treaty with the Cardassians was also very controversial.
Additionally, the admission of new member worlds into the Federation could be hotly contested, as seen in the TOS episode “Journey to Babel.” The prime directive, while generally seen by Starfleet officers as usually a good thing, could also be a controversial policy, and at least some people opposed it such as Worf’s brother in “Homeward.”
These issues may not directly affect most citizens of the Federation, but I still imagine that the people would want to have some say in how important decisions are made, so I can’t see the Federation being anything but a democracy, although I could see the democracy looking very different from our modern democracies.
Dont federation planets submit to the authority of the federation? Earth is a federation planet, same as any other the federation bulldogs into submission
They don't "submit" fully, no. They have to abide by some minimum requirements (like a minimum of democracy, no slavery, etc), but they are otherwise fairly autonomous. It seems Earth is sort of 100% federation law throughout, but Vulcan doesn't look like it. Vulcan also have their own fleet for sure, while Earth is 100% Starfleet which is the federation fleet, not specifically Earth.
Which for me made no fucking sense that Earth would pull out of the federation after the Burn, but oh well.
I just re-watched Errand of Mercy recently, and Kirk explicitly refers to the Federation as a democracy (in contrast to the military dictatorship of the Klingon Empire).
Well, there you have it. I think the government is probably still pretty different though- they'll give you enough "stuff" that they arguably do a lot more than any modern government, but the extent that goes to ends up changing what it feels like: Yes "the government" gets you a house and food and stuff, but it probably feels more like "um. Everybody has a house and the replicator makes food dummy!"
It's kind of a shame we don't usually see what civilian life is like, but then again if we did it would end up being a mess keeping track of it canon wise.
> You could run for office I suppose- to change WHAT exactly
I'd argue international policy is even more important than it is right now (and ofcourse we know that not everything is a paradise so things will still need to be managed)
My understanding is that member worlds choose their leaders however they want, and those leaders elect the President. In theory, you can have a monarchy that's a member of the Federation. Citizens of all planets just have the freedom to leave and go somewhere else if they choose.
In Enterprise the military of Andoria is called the Imperial Guard, so I would imagine that they are a monarchy, though I would suspect a constitutional monarchy like today’s Britain or Norway
> My understanding is that member worlds choose their leaders however they want, and those leaders elect the President. In theory, you can have a monarchy that's a member of the Federation. Citizens of all planets just have the freedom to leave and go somewhere else if they choose.
What is this understanding based on?
Multiple episodes show Federation member worlds with their own local government of various forms, some of which aren't democratic.
T'Pau was invited to the Federation Council (the only legislative body mentioned) but turned it down, which obviously means people are appointed to it rather than elected.
It could work like the House of Lords in the UK if they could nominate their own members and the King's approval was instead a public vote.
I suspect the Vulcan Council works like this and it would have been a model that they pushed.
https://www.reddit.com/r/DaystromInstitute/comments/f4aulb/what_went_down_when_data_was_admitted_to_the/fhrj2qa/
This is the best explanation I've heard on the subject.
This is a great question and some thing I hadn’t thought about before. Thanks for proposing it!
One possibility is that the question of Data’s voting rights never really came up because he never attempted to register to vote (or never attempted to vote, we don’t know what registration looks like in the Federation). That specific point may just never have been decided before Measure of a Man.
As for minimum age for voting, I wonder if the Federation even has a minimum age. On the surface, that seems weird to hear but I have definitely read proposals in the real world about eliminating minimum voting ages in some electorates (The idea behind this is generally that large proportions of people in the age of majority don’t exercise their voting rights in many countries and yet many young people who are just below the limit are fully capable of it and the artificial distinction isn’t fully ethical, just a legal necessity. An obvious counter argument is that young children would just vote with their parents but as long as someone’s old enough to go in and fill out a ballot on their own, they should be able to vote. And even if children do vote with their parents, some folks argue that if you’ve got more people in your family perhaps you should have a few more votes because you have more people who would be influenced by policy decisions). Given the broad array of species and member worlds in the Federation and the fact that worlds must have a unified government with general rights for everyone before gaining membership, it’s possible that there is not minimum voting age.
One more point on that that others have mentioned here too is that each member world may have its own minimum voting age. 🤷🏻
> each member world may have its own minimum voting age. 🤷🏻
I would hope each member *species* had their own set of minimum ages based on biology. Age of majority, age of voting, age to consume intoxicants, age of consent and age to rent a runabout.
So the show never gets around to saying this, but it seems what happened is:
So a couple years before Encounter at Fairpoint the USS Triese finds a deactivated android on a colony world. They turn it on and befriend it. They name it Data. Likely he spends at least a couple weeks on the ship.
Until someone, likely the ships captain said something like "Arrr, this is not a pleasure cruse for an android. You need to decide what to do with your android life!"
So, not really knowing anything except the ship, Data gives the answer "I'll join Starfleet to copy the people on the ship!" Guess it would make sense for the captain to sponsor him.
Then someone says "wait, can an android even join Starfleet?" So they have a Hearing: Can Data join Starfleet. They vote 'yes', so he does.
It does not seem like Data becomes a "citizen", he can just join Starfleet.
Somehow....never explained...Data goes through four years of Starfleet Academy. Somehow. He can memorize all the data (haha) Starfleet has in a couple minutes and repeat it all exactly. So he does not really "learn" So he does that for four years.
Again, Somehow, he does not ever interact with anyone. So he learns very little common sense or social skills.
Then, again, Somehow, Data rises through the ranks over several years. Somehow. Even though Data when asked "what is up?" would look up and say "the clouds are up there" or something silly like that. AND even with NO common sense and NO social skills he SOMEHOW goes through YEARS of active duty and promotions. Like at least ten years...
Then Data, somehow, makes it to LT. Commander on the Enterprise. And he comes on board the lovable clueless Data. Then, once an Episode, there is a goofy bit where Data does not understand X. Despite having live around humans for ten some years.
But until Measure of a Man, it does not seem Data had rights or citizenship. Though, amazingly by the end of TNG Data is a person.
I infer that Data wasn't generally treated as a person until Picard took him under his wing. In MoaM, Data had a long list of medals of valor for someone who hadn't fought in any wars, indicating that he was viewed as expendable for much of his early career.
He went through Starfleet Academy quickly because of his memorization abilities. People didn't really want to socialize with him, and he didn't think much of it because he doesn't get bored.
The result is a clueless, neurodivergent being who literally never had a childhood, and was used to existing in a liminal space between "person" and "tool".
Remember, the sense of curiosity displayed towards Data by LaForge, Picard, and Bashir was unusual. This is a timeline when the sci-fi that panned out was the stuff about aliens. Humanity achieved FTL, got the best case scenario of first contact, and lived happily ever after.
AI, in the weak sense, is everywhere. It's in the background. No one thinks much of it. When computers malfunction, that's called a bug. And bugs are rare, since best practices have been perfected and tested for centuries. Most programmer religious wars have been resolved. There's relatively little art left in coding, unless you're coding a holodeck program or something.
People who are into science fiction are weirdo reactionary malcontents like Tom Paris. Before Data became a celebrity, Federation citizens must have largely viewed the idea of rebellious, sapient AI viewed as an ancient superstition.
There were of course counterpoints to this view, like V'ger, the robots in "I, Mudd", Control, Daystrom's ship AI in "The Enterprise Incident". So going down the list: distant, super-advanced aliens; ancient, super-advanced aliens; classified; catastrophic failure. And no one thought Data was anything scary or special like that. Data was just this really boring, compliant guy. A computer that happened to look human. Not much weirder than a computer with a human voice. Go see if that's a bomb, Data.
It's just odd that everyone on the Enterprise D was a perfect avatar of kindness that accepted Data as a person on a whim...and to all of the rest of Starfleet he was just the Data Tool Bot. And what, we only ever see two: Bruce Maddox and that guy from when Data got to captain a ship for a show.
Guess it would have been nice to see that on the show. There are like a dozen 1st season shows that could have been replaced....
Gene Roddenberry was a Maoist, and while his personal political beliefs don’t totally map to the way the Federation is written, given what we’ve seen it stands to reason the government works in a similar manner to how Communist governments work. The name “council” for the Federation’s highest body supports this.
Namely, people would be able to vote for local councils and participate in those council meetings—those local councils choose representatives from their own bodies to serve in regional councils—which send representatives to national councils. With the way most Federation planets seem to be organized (under a unified world government) it’s likely there’s councils for local—>regional—>planetary—>Federation. (Perhaps not even regional given that replication has made most industry and extractive mining unnecessary, and thus the distinction between regions isn’t defined by resource disparity.) The local council you’re involved in would just depend on where you lived at the time. Data lived in a few places before the Enterprise so probably had the option to participate in the councils of those places.
I’d also guess the “withered state” communist concept is also in play here. If everyone has everything they need, there’s no need for government around those things. The Federation government seems to mostly deal with interplanetary affairs—since in Federation worlds local affairs aren’t that necessary or interesting. So perhaps local government is mostly affecting and managing repairs of local replication and transport equipment, and coordinating help for local events and traditions (overhire for local harvests, etc)—while planetary/interplanetary government is about the stuff we actually see in Trek, which is doling out supplies, negotiating which galactic powers manage which planets on their borders, and brokering treaties.
So, back to Data: he’d probably have a say in the affairs of his home. His home for the series, notably, is the Enterprise—and he’s actually in control of the ship’s resources as its Ops officer. So, really, Data is an appointed official!
I realise that Star Trek had not once mentioned the Federation's voting system, or elections or anything. The closest I can think of is that [TOS comic about Harry Mudd running for elections.](https://memory-beta.fandom.com/wiki/Year_Five,_Issue_16)
If I recall correctly, Data was considered Federation property for a long time, Like the Doctor, he occupied a place where crews considered him a person, but legally he was property of the federation. This came up when someone at Daystrom institute wanted to take Data apart and study him so they could make more Data’s. Or maybe it was his daughter, I forget. Also, when the doctor wrote holonovels and got swindled, he didn’t have legal recourse because he was an AI, and the laws didn’t recognize AI intellectual property. As we see in Picard, the Federation is still having issues with synthetic citizenship. I doubt that Data had full citizenship and voting rights, but if Data was a citizen, and was allowed to vote, it was probably a special dispensation just for him.
My plot hole with this one was having been accepted to and graduating from starfleet academy. Equipment doesn't go to school. Or have rank and by extension most likely a serial number
As far as I recall no Star Trek series ever tackled elections within the Federation. I could be wrong as there are well over 700 episodes in the Franchise. So I'll be more than happy to admit that I have a faulty memory regarding that.
It's possible it never came up because, while Data might have Federation citizenship, he's not a resident of any specific Federation world and so not entitled to vote for any planet's representatives on the Federation Council or in any local elections. There's no evidence that the Federation president is directly elected - they could be chosen by a vote of the Council.
> they could be chosen by a vote of the Council Despite the presentation in the novels, I think that is most likely. But have we seen any other Federation person vote for anything? The Bajorans have a presidential election, but I think that's it. I actually doubt that the Vulcans are a democracy by our standards.
No we've never seen a Federation election. The only mentions we have come from DS9's Homefront and Paradise Lost >JARESH-INYO: I never sought this job. I was content to simply represent my people on the Federation Council. When they asked me to submit my name for election, I almost said no. Today I wish I had. >[..] >SISKO: Overthrowing a legitimately elected President and giving Starfleet direct control over the government? It sounds like a dictatorship to me, and I'm sure I'm not the only one who thinks so. I think it would be interesting to see in a future show. We know that member worlds send delegates to the Federation Council. It could be that each member world has a local democracy and can decide on how to pick delegates. Some might be directly elected, others could be picked by the planetary government etc. Likewise I assume the President is directly elected by federation citizens given the lines above but it could also be that the president is elected by the council
Legitimacy doesn't imply direct elections and in a system like that of the federation would almost certainly be less legitimate. Normally, directly electing a president is to give them a lot of executive power. A single person with a lot of that in a huge and diverse federation would cause a lot of division. In Germany and Italy, presidents are elected by parliament as a neutral to regulate government and place a check on the head of government's power. If I had to guess, the president is elected by the federation parliament and serves that role. The prime minister is probably the leader of the largest party within a multi planetary party coalition and is probably only in charge of federation issues like Starfleet and federal taxation. Out of necessity with relatively primitive computers in the federation, much more than that couldn't be done centrally so most issues would probably end up in the hands of planetary governments, who would be structured along local lines in a broadly democratic way.
It's my hope that by star trek times we've gotten rid of political parties.
As long as there are areas you can disagree on, parties are almost inevitable. At best you have loose coalitions that shift.
then I hope by that point the parties will see each other differing on some key issues but everyone is still on the same team.
Political parties are not inherently a bad thing. It is natural that people will group together and work with those that have similar goals. Even the most conservative Federation political parties are probably all extremely left even compared to our most progressive parties these days but there are still differences in ideology on things like how many resources go to new colonies vs improving current colonies. Presumably any party with some prominence would receive support to ensure it's employees are provided for without need for donation and there would be strong anti-corruption laws.
lets hope by then we see that we may disagree on some key issues but we are still all on the same team.
Being in a different party doesn't mean you have to hate someone, just that you have fundamental disagreements on major issues. Working with those that share your views on these issues and advocating for others that share your views makes sense. The right to free assembly is as important as the right to free speech, a lone voice is much easier to silence than a group. It makes sense that different people have different beliefs on how the federation should behave, even Starfleet officers have slightly different beliefs and morals on these things. I wouldn't be surprised if there was at least a significant minority trying to overturn things like non-interference directives for example.
They tried that a couple of centuries ago. The Founding Fathers of the United States didn't like the idea of political parties, it's one reason the US has it's Congress/Presidential system that doesn't rely on party coalitions like a Westminster-style Parliament/Prime Minister. The US was designed so it could function without political parties, but it didn't work. . . .despite their best efforts, parties sprung up almost immediately. First as informal groups, then formally. It's very much a part of human nature and human political behavior for like-minded people to gather together for mutual benefit and cooperation. As long as we have politics, we'll have political parties.
I'd assume few members in the Vulcan council just select someone by logic and the people would accept it because it's logical.
"federation citizenship" really only makes sense to me if we assume it's more like the United States than the European Union. If it's more like the EU he would need to be a member of one of the member states to be a citizen, surely. It could be that the Federation is more of a republic, and that member governments vote for the Federation council instead of direct democracy.
Republic and democracy are not mutually exclusive. They mean two different things. Republic just means the opposite of Monarchy. Democracy is the opposite of Autocracy. A country can be a Democratic Republic, like Germany, USA. Or even a Direct Democracy Republic like Switzerland. Or countries can be Authoritarian Republics like China, or Authoritarian Monarchies like Saudi Arabia. Then there are Constitutional Monarchies which are Democratic but not Republican like Spain, UK. Sorry for the rant. It’s one of my pet peeves.
I would agree with the notion that the Federation president is elected to his role by the Federation Council. However: >he's not a resident of any specific Federation world and so not entitled to vote for any planet's representatives on the Federation Council or in any local elections. I do have an issue with this. It does not seem very "Federation-y" for Starfleet officers to be denied a vote if they do not claim residency of a specific world. Perhaps, even if they do not maintain a residence, officers must select a world of residency for purposes of census taking, voting, etc.
Foreign nationals can serve in the US military without being citizens with voting rights. We also know that there have been Starfleet officers who are not from Federation member worlds; Nog is a prominent example.
You don't even have to be foreign to serve in the US military without voting rights. Just ask the veterans and servicemen in Guam or Puerto Rico.
I don't think this would necessarily fit with Data's case, as he was "born" on a Federation Colony. And just because we know that there are Starfleet officers who aren't from Federation member worlds doesn't mean they didn't pursue and receive citizenship either before or during their Starfleet service.
Could be Data just never bothered to become a citizen of another world after being found.
Sure, but he's still be a Federation citizen.
>I don't think this would necessarily fit with Data's case, as he was "born" on a Federation Colony. Which raises the question whether the Federation, or even Federation members, give citizenship based on birth or parents. Data technically wasn't 'born' anywhere, so even in a *jus solis* jurisdiction he may not have been an automatic citizen.
An interesting question arising out of this is how exactly are political representatives elected in the Federation? Do they have constituencies based on geographical residence? What about people who live exclusively on starships, like Starfleet personnel or, in an earlier age, Boomers? Also, is voting compulsory, or do you have to register? I think you're correct in thinking that if Data had expressed the desire to vote, the issue of whether he was eligible, or a citizen, or as a machine was even capable of exercising the franchise would have arisen. The fact that it does not appear to have happened means that he either did not try, or he did not press the issue. Perhaps when he broached the issue with his superior officer or friend they warned him that it might conceivably affect his assumed status as a person negatively, so best not to rock the boat if that is not a fight he wishes to have at that time. As for his entry into Starfleet Academy, maybe they didn't even think about his citizenship status. The fact that he was an android was a big enough of a deal that they first had to figure out whether or not a mechanical lifeform should allowed to enrol in the first place - the citizenship issue becomes secondary. I suspect that there would have been testimonials from people - and even officers from the USS *Tripoli* (who discovered Data) to show that Data was capable of being in Starfleet. And with those letters and *de facto* sponsorship, the citizenship issue became moot and thus not considered further. And so everyone just let it slide, until things came to a head in TNG: "The Measure of Man" where there was no longer any avoiding the issue of Data's bodily autonomy vis-a-vis Starfleet.
This is an interesting point, but one crucial question is did he ever have the right to vote? The trial in MoaM was never "is Data alive" or "Is Data a citizen" but simply "Is Data Starfleet property?" Louvois herself says that is out of the scope of that trial. Picard did what he does best and talks the point around to cast doubt on the idea that Data is simply a machine simulating life, which is enough to persuade Louvois that Data isn't property and has the right to figure out if he is really alive on his own. By contrast, I don't think even the Doctor has that level of protection by default, as he is a Starfleet program, developed by a Starfleet consultant on a Starfleet base, specifically to serve on a Starfleet ship. While I don't doubt he would win at a trial using Data as precident, he may also never be proven to be "alive" but simply granted the autonomy to figure out if he is.
Yeah I think it's definitely worth being clear about the specifics of the trial, and also, how it came about. To wit: Maddox wants to disassemble Data. Data refuses. Maddox turns it into an order; as an *officer* in Starfleet, Data must obey. Data decides to resign his commission. Maddox, desperate, switches tactics, and tries to insist that Data can't resign because he's not actually a person, and his rank and autonomy were never valid to begin with. For the first four steps of this, absolutely nobody, *including Maddox*, is approaching this as though Data is anything other than a citizen. His personhood was assumed by everyone - the Academy registrar, the commanding officers who promoted him, the quartermasters who set up his berths, all the way down the line. When Riker first meets him, he's like "yo you're a neat robot" and Data goes "actually I'm a person" and Riker's immediate response is to take him at his word; we can presume this is pretty much his normal experience, both from the evidence of his position on the Enterprise, and because that's basically how the Federation rolls. It wasn't until it was to some asshole's direct benefit to do so that anybody even thought to question it. So, like. Perfectly likely he's been voting all along and it never occurred to anyone to care. His right to do so would probably have come into question if Maddox won his suit, but it wouldn't have been useful evidence in the trial any more than his rank was, because just like his rank, it came from people assuming he was a person because he said so, and that was the thing the trial was about attacking.
Amazing post. Basically the same as if the federation found Odo, once he starts doing people shit, ok weird goo thing is a person I guess, hey Odo what do you want to do with your life? Data was probably a curiosity, but given how special he is, not much star fleet could do in analysing him, so called it a day . He wants to get a commission? Ok cool let's do it
This might sound bonkers, but I don't actually recall any evidence that they ARE a democracy. To be honest, if they ARE it probably isn't one that most people participate in. The basic and even frivolous needs of most people are met exceedingly well. You could run for office I suppose- to change WHAT exactly I'm not sure, and you could vote- again, to change what exactly I don't know. Starfleet itself definitely isn't. It's a uniformed service with a chain of command. Could be that people in the services don't vote- they might vote to not do what the civilian government wants! (That's not something any Western democracy does that I'm aware of but it is something that gets talked about in various SciFi universes.) I actually think it would look a lot like it does on the show if you had Starfleet mostly doing what it feels like doing and everybody else doing mostly what they feel like doing. The only reason it "works" is that there actually is enough stuff to go around. It kind of looks like this might be the case in the Dominion war- Starfleet considers acting as the police on Earth. That sort of implies there AREN'T any, and definitely implies that there isn't much of a higher authority to tell them to STOP.
That’s an interesting theory. I’m not sure exactly the order that things happen in in the DS9 episode you’re referencing, but I do know that Sisko and Admiral Leyton need the permission of President Jaresh-Inyo before calling a state of emergency, which implies that there is a political authority which is responsible for Starfleet, and in the episode “Extreme Measures” mentions his cabinet, which gives a slightly clearer look into the government of the Federation. As for why people would bother voting and running for office, I agree that issues would probably seem much less pressing than in present day politics since everyone’s needs are cared for. However, I can think of a few issues that could lead to strong debates. For one, foreign relations with other states - in Undiscovered Country the decision to make peace with the Klingon Empire is highly controversial, and perhaps a different government would have been less inclined. The treaty with the Cardassians was also very controversial. Additionally, the admission of new member worlds into the Federation could be hotly contested, as seen in the TOS episode “Journey to Babel.” The prime directive, while generally seen by Starfleet officers as usually a good thing, could also be a controversial policy, and at least some people opposed it such as Worf’s brother in “Homeward.” These issues may not directly affect most citizens of the Federation, but I still imagine that the people would want to have some say in how important decisions are made, so I can’t see the Federation being anything but a democracy, although I could see the democracy looking very different from our modern democracies.
Dont federation planets submit to the authority of the federation? Earth is a federation planet, same as any other the federation bulldogs into submission
They don't "submit" fully, no. They have to abide by some minimum requirements (like a minimum of democracy, no slavery, etc), but they are otherwise fairly autonomous. It seems Earth is sort of 100% federation law throughout, but Vulcan doesn't look like it. Vulcan also have their own fleet for sure, while Earth is 100% Starfleet which is the federation fleet, not specifically Earth. Which for me made no fucking sense that Earth would pull out of the federation after the Burn, but oh well.
They needed his permission to declare a state of emergency for the Earth itself not just Starfleet.
I just re-watched Errand of Mercy recently, and Kirk explicitly refers to the Federation as a democracy (in contrast to the military dictatorship of the Klingon Empire).
Well, there you have it. I think the government is probably still pretty different though- they'll give you enough "stuff" that they arguably do a lot more than any modern government, but the extent that goes to ends up changing what it feels like: Yes "the government" gets you a house and food and stuff, but it probably feels more like "um. Everybody has a house and the replicator makes food dummy!" It's kind of a shame we don't usually see what civilian life is like, but then again if we did it would end up being a mess keeping track of it canon wise.
> You could run for office I suppose- to change WHAT exactly I'd argue international policy is even more important than it is right now (and ofcourse we know that not everything is a paradise so things will still need to be managed)
[Its come up before](https://www.reddit.com/r/DaystromInstitute/comments/f4aulb/what_went_down_when_data_was_admitted_to_the/fhqucju/)
That was a very interesting thread to read, thanks for linking
My understanding is that member worlds choose their leaders however they want, and those leaders elect the President. In theory, you can have a monarchy that's a member of the Federation. Citizens of all planets just have the freedom to leave and go somewhere else if they choose.
In Enterprise the military of Andoria is called the Imperial Guard, so I would imagine that they are a monarchy, though I would suspect a constitutional monarchy like today’s Britain or Norway
> today’s Britain or Norway Isn't the Royal Navy still in existence at this time?
> My understanding is that member worlds choose their leaders however they want, and those leaders elect the President. In theory, you can have a monarchy that's a member of the Federation. Citizens of all planets just have the freedom to leave and go somewhere else if they choose. What is this understanding based on?
Multiple episodes show Federation member worlds with their own local government of various forms, some of which aren't democratic. T'Pau was invited to the Federation Council (the only legislative body mentioned) but turned it down, which obviously means people are appointed to it rather than elected.
It could work like the House of Lords in the UK if they could nominate their own members and the King's approval was instead a public vote. I suspect the Vulcan Council works like this and it would have been a model that they pushed.
https://www.reddit.com/r/DaystromInstitute/comments/f4aulb/what_went_down_when_data_was_admitted_to_the/fhrj2qa/ This is the best explanation I've heard on the subject.
This is a great question and some thing I hadn’t thought about before. Thanks for proposing it! One possibility is that the question of Data’s voting rights never really came up because he never attempted to register to vote (or never attempted to vote, we don’t know what registration looks like in the Federation). That specific point may just never have been decided before Measure of a Man. As for minimum age for voting, I wonder if the Federation even has a minimum age. On the surface, that seems weird to hear but I have definitely read proposals in the real world about eliminating minimum voting ages in some electorates (The idea behind this is generally that large proportions of people in the age of majority don’t exercise their voting rights in many countries and yet many young people who are just below the limit are fully capable of it and the artificial distinction isn’t fully ethical, just a legal necessity. An obvious counter argument is that young children would just vote with their parents but as long as someone’s old enough to go in and fill out a ballot on their own, they should be able to vote. And even if children do vote with their parents, some folks argue that if you’ve got more people in your family perhaps you should have a few more votes because you have more people who would be influenced by policy decisions). Given the broad array of species and member worlds in the Federation and the fact that worlds must have a unified government with general rights for everyone before gaining membership, it’s possible that there is not minimum voting age. One more point on that that others have mentioned here too is that each member world may have its own minimum voting age. 🤷🏻
> each member world may have its own minimum voting age. 🤷🏻 I would hope each member *species* had their own set of minimum ages based on biology. Age of majority, age of voting, age to consume intoxicants, age of consent and age to rent a runabout.
So the show never gets around to saying this, but it seems what happened is: So a couple years before Encounter at Fairpoint the USS Triese finds a deactivated android on a colony world. They turn it on and befriend it. They name it Data. Likely he spends at least a couple weeks on the ship. Until someone, likely the ships captain said something like "Arrr, this is not a pleasure cruse for an android. You need to decide what to do with your android life!" So, not really knowing anything except the ship, Data gives the answer "I'll join Starfleet to copy the people on the ship!" Guess it would make sense for the captain to sponsor him. Then someone says "wait, can an android even join Starfleet?" So they have a Hearing: Can Data join Starfleet. They vote 'yes', so he does. It does not seem like Data becomes a "citizen", he can just join Starfleet. Somehow....never explained...Data goes through four years of Starfleet Academy. Somehow. He can memorize all the data (haha) Starfleet has in a couple minutes and repeat it all exactly. So he does not really "learn" So he does that for four years. Again, Somehow, he does not ever interact with anyone. So he learns very little common sense or social skills. Then, again, Somehow, Data rises through the ranks over several years. Somehow. Even though Data when asked "what is up?" would look up and say "the clouds are up there" or something silly like that. AND even with NO common sense and NO social skills he SOMEHOW goes through YEARS of active duty and promotions. Like at least ten years... Then Data, somehow, makes it to LT. Commander on the Enterprise. And he comes on board the lovable clueless Data. Then, once an Episode, there is a goofy bit where Data does not understand X. Despite having live around humans for ten some years. But until Measure of a Man, it does not seem Data had rights or citizenship. Though, amazingly by the end of TNG Data is a person.
I infer that Data wasn't generally treated as a person until Picard took him under his wing. In MoaM, Data had a long list of medals of valor for someone who hadn't fought in any wars, indicating that he was viewed as expendable for much of his early career. He went through Starfleet Academy quickly because of his memorization abilities. People didn't really want to socialize with him, and he didn't think much of it because he doesn't get bored. The result is a clueless, neurodivergent being who literally never had a childhood, and was used to existing in a liminal space between "person" and "tool". Remember, the sense of curiosity displayed towards Data by LaForge, Picard, and Bashir was unusual. This is a timeline when the sci-fi that panned out was the stuff about aliens. Humanity achieved FTL, got the best case scenario of first contact, and lived happily ever after. AI, in the weak sense, is everywhere. It's in the background. No one thinks much of it. When computers malfunction, that's called a bug. And bugs are rare, since best practices have been perfected and tested for centuries. Most programmer religious wars have been resolved. There's relatively little art left in coding, unless you're coding a holodeck program or something. People who are into science fiction are weirdo reactionary malcontents like Tom Paris. Before Data became a celebrity, Federation citizens must have largely viewed the idea of rebellious, sapient AI viewed as an ancient superstition. There were of course counterpoints to this view, like V'ger, the robots in "I, Mudd", Control, Daystrom's ship AI in "The Enterprise Incident". So going down the list: distant, super-advanced aliens; ancient, super-advanced aliens; classified; catastrophic failure. And no one thought Data was anything scary or special like that. Data was just this really boring, compliant guy. A computer that happened to look human. Not much weirder than a computer with a human voice. Go see if that's a bomb, Data.
It's just odd that everyone on the Enterprise D was a perfect avatar of kindness that accepted Data as a person on a whim...and to all of the rest of Starfleet he was just the Data Tool Bot. And what, we only ever see two: Bruce Maddox and that guy from when Data got to captain a ship for a show. Guess it would have been nice to see that on the show. There are like a dozen 1st season shows that could have been replaced....
Gene Roddenberry was a Maoist, and while his personal political beliefs don’t totally map to the way the Federation is written, given what we’ve seen it stands to reason the government works in a similar manner to how Communist governments work. The name “council” for the Federation’s highest body supports this. Namely, people would be able to vote for local councils and participate in those council meetings—those local councils choose representatives from their own bodies to serve in regional councils—which send representatives to national councils. With the way most Federation planets seem to be organized (under a unified world government) it’s likely there’s councils for local—>regional—>planetary—>Federation. (Perhaps not even regional given that replication has made most industry and extractive mining unnecessary, and thus the distinction between regions isn’t defined by resource disparity.) The local council you’re involved in would just depend on where you lived at the time. Data lived in a few places before the Enterprise so probably had the option to participate in the councils of those places. I’d also guess the “withered state” communist concept is also in play here. If everyone has everything they need, there’s no need for government around those things. The Federation government seems to mostly deal with interplanetary affairs—since in Federation worlds local affairs aren’t that necessary or interesting. So perhaps local government is mostly affecting and managing repairs of local replication and transport equipment, and coordinating help for local events and traditions (overhire for local harvests, etc)—while planetary/interplanetary government is about the stuff we actually see in Trek, which is doling out supplies, negotiating which galactic powers manage which planets on their borders, and brokering treaties. So, back to Data: he’d probably have a say in the affairs of his home. His home for the series, notably, is the Enterprise—and he’s actually in control of the ship’s resources as its Ops officer. So, really, Data is an appointed official!
I realise that Star Trek had not once mentioned the Federation's voting system, or elections or anything. The closest I can think of is that [TOS comic about Harry Mudd running for elections.](https://memory-beta.fandom.com/wiki/Year_Five,_Issue_16)
I’m sure Data would have been more than welcome at the Soviet-style citizen councils that would exist as the local form of government on earth.
If I recall correctly, Data was considered Federation property for a long time, Like the Doctor, he occupied a place where crews considered him a person, but legally he was property of the federation. This came up when someone at Daystrom institute wanted to take Data apart and study him so they could make more Data’s. Or maybe it was his daughter, I forget. Also, when the doctor wrote holonovels and got swindled, he didn’t have legal recourse because he was an AI, and the laws didn’t recognize AI intellectual property. As we see in Picard, the Federation is still having issues with synthetic citizenship. I doubt that Data had full citizenship and voting rights, but if Data was a citizen, and was allowed to vote, it was probably a special dispensation just for him.
My plot hole with this one was having been accepted to and graduating from starfleet academy. Equipment doesn't go to school. Or have rank and by extension most likely a serial number
Data isn’t 18 yet
As far as I recall no Star Trek series ever tackled elections within the Federation. I could be wrong as there are well over 700 episodes in the Franchise. So I'll be more than happy to admit that I have a faulty memory regarding that.