There was some clamouring before the last election for there to be a Unified Electoral Code. And thus, the Forum Affairs Department delivers.
Basically the Election laws are presently spread over about 4 Acts and are beginning to get seems of contradictions in them. To alleviate this, all standing election law as we understand it has been combined into one piece of continuous legislation, with all old legislation being repealed.
There has also been some changes in wording and a few practices: This is to clarify intent and procedures and also to iron out some of the kinks that have been encountered in previous elections.
I'd like to thank both VP Emsworth and SoFA Ilikeverin for all their help in drafting this, and also the Senators who have shown support for this project conducted in the bowels of government and their suggestions. Hopefully one of them will be kind enough to introduce this on our behalf.
There have been requests for certain alternative sections to be drafted: This will be done in due course over the next couple of days. Without further ado:
Unified Electoral Code[/u]
Section 1: Votes
1. In their vote in the Elections to the Senate and the Presidency, each voter shall list some, none, or all of the candidates in the voter's order of preference for them.
2. If no numbering of the preferences is stated, then the candidate at the top of the list shall be presumed to be the first preference, the candidate on the second line of the list shall be presumed to be the second preference, and so on.
3. A voter may cast a write-in vote in any election, except a runoff election.
4. In order to write-in a candidate, the voter shall not be required to explicitly specify that his or her vote is for a write-in candidate.
5. In order for write-in votes for a candidate to qualify as countable votes, the person written-in must formally accept the write-in candidacy before the end of voting in the given election.
6. A voter may vote for "None of the Above" in any election, except a runoff election. Any voter who votes for "None of the Above" may do so only as a first preference; any and all lower preferences of the voter shall be ignored.
Section 2: Determination of the Winner
1. If any candidate shall gain a majority of highest preference votes, then that candidate shall be declared the winner of the election.
2. If no candidate has a majority of highest preference votes, the candidate with the fewest first preferences shall be eliminated, and his or her votes redistributed according to the next-highest preferences of the voters.
3. If, after the implementation of Clause 2 of this Section, any candidate shall have a majority of the highest preference votes, then that candidate shall be declared the winner of the election. If no such candidate shall exist, then Clause 2 of this Section shall be implemented again until such a candidate does exist, or until all candidates have the same number of highest preference votes.
4. If two or more candidates are tied for the least number of highest preference votes, but none of those candidates are tied for the greatest number of highest preference votes, then the following procedure shall be used to determine which candidate is eliminated:
i. The candidate with the least total number of preferences expressed by voters shall be eliminated.
ii. The Senate shall vote on which candidate to eliminate, with the Vice President being able to cast a tie-breaking vote if necessary.
Section 3: Run-off Elections
If all remaining candidates shall have the same number of highest preference votes, then the following procedure shall be used to break the tie:
1. A runoff shall be held beginning at midnight Eastern Standard Time on the first Friday after the election, and ending 72 hours thereafter.
2. Those candidates who have tied shall be automatically entered onto the ballot. No other candidacies shall be allowed.
3. Voters shall only be able to cast a vote for one candidate.
4. If any candidate shall gain a majority of the votes cast, then he shall be declared winner.
Section 4: Sudden Death Tie Breaking
If Section 3 fails to yield a winner then candidates shall have the option of using one of the following methods to break the tie:
1. Number Guessing
i. The President shall choose an integer between one and ten and shall secretly communicate this number to the Secretary of Forum Affairs and to the Chief Justice. Once receipt of this number by both parties is confirmed, the candidates in the tie shall then guess the original number and communicate this guess to the three officials without revealing their guess to others.
ii. Whichever candidate guesses closest to the number shall be declared the winner of the tie. In the event that two or more guesses are equidistant from the original number, this shall result in a tie, and the process shall be repeated until this event does not occur.
iii. In the event that any of the office holders listed either are themselves candidates present in the tie or are not present to fulfill their duty, those in the aforementioned situation shall be replaced by the highest office holder in the following list who is not a candidate present in the tie and who is present to fulfill the duty:
Vice President
Deputy Secretary of Forum Affairs
President Pro Tempore
Secretary of State
Attorney General
Secretary of Defense
Secretary of the Treasury
Senior Associate Justice
Junior Associate Justice
District 1 Senator
District 2 Senator
District 3 Senator
District 4 Senator
District 5 Senator
Mideast Senator
Midwest Senator
Northeast Senator
Pacific Senator
Southeast Senator
iv. In the event that all office holders listed in Clause iii either are candidates in the tie or are not present to fulfill the duty, the President shall appoint one to three citizens able to fulfill the duty, depending on how many are needed to fill the vacant positions, and the citizen(s) shall then be required to be approved by the Senate by a majority vote before the number shall be selected.
2. Term Splitting
The candidates in the tie shall agree upon a schedule according to which the candidates shall divide the term among themselves. The schedule shall be allowed to be whatever the candidates agree upon, provided that its total length does not exceed the term to which a candidate would have been elected to had he won in his own right.
3. Governor's Vote
The Governors of the several Regions shall each vote for one of the candidates in the tie; If one candidate achieves an absolute majority, then he shall be declared victor. If no candidate obtains such a majority, then the Governors shall have continuous re-votes until such a candidate exists.
4. Failure to Agree
If within one week of the necessity of Sudden Death Tie Breaking being known, the candidates have not agreed on a method to break the tie, then the method described in Clause 3 shall be used to break the tie.
Section 5: None of the Above
If, in an election, the None of the Above option shall have gained more votes than each candidate, then a new election shall be held under the following procedure
1. The new election shall be held beginning at midnight Eastern Standard Time on the second Friday after the election, and ending 72 hours thereafter.
2. None of the candidates defeated by the None of the Above option in the original may be declared candidates in the new election. However, a voter may still write-in any such candidate.
3. The candidacy declaration deadline for the new election shall be the same as for special elections.
4. Except as regards Clause 2 of this Section, all provisions of Section 1 of this Act shall apply to the new election.
Section 6: Applicability
Any instance of the word "candidate" in Sections 1 through 5 shall be read as "ticket" in the case of Presidential elections.
(continues)