View source for MicrasWiki:Nouvelle Alexandrie/Guide to New Alexandrian Elections

{{Nouvelle Alexandrie Article}}{{WIP}}

==Quick overview==
The Administrative Board, with the participation of the citizens of Nouvelle Alexandrie, simulates primaries and general elections every five to six (5 to 6) months.

Election schedules and dates may change and are subject to the Administrators, of course.

The general election is for the lower house of the Cortes Federales of Nouvelle Alexandrie, the national legislature. The lower house of the Cortes Federales is the Federal Assembly. It is composed of 619 Deputies, elected proportionally from each of the 10 Regions of the Federation.

The Cortes majority will be determined according to a head-to-head election between political parties. Participation in the election will require the combination of strategic elements of mobilizing the votes of real supporters in the server, simulated resource allocation and events-based campaigning.

The party that had the higher vote total during the previous session may enter the election with an advantage, but may not necessarily win the majority for the next term.

As a matter of simplicity, parties are not competing for specific seats, but rather a proportion of seats in each region of Nouvelle Alexandrie.

Campaigning done in a region may increase the number of seats a party wins there, but parties can't target an individual seat at the expense of other seats in the same area. Given enough resources, effort, the rightly-crafted message, and quality campaigning/ads, it is possible to win more seats at the expense of other parties.

Have any questions? Ask in #questions-and-help or ask your party’s leadership.

===Why so long between elections? That’s too long.===
While the general elections are pretty exciting and important moments, Nouvelle Alexandrie also focuses on its long-term simulation of a functioning government with an active legislature. This is in addition to the ongoing work of worldbuilding, lore and culture development of Nouvelle Alexandrie. The regular activity of members and parties between general elections directly impacts polling, party strength, and reach in the simulation. In certain extenuating circumstances, elections may happen sooner than the five to six month mark, but this is rare.

==The New Alexandrian Election System==
The election system in Nouvelle Alexandrie works by producing a result that is a simulated vote for each political party or independent candidate that participated in the election. This simulated vote is then used to determine the seats in the legislature.

The results of elections are based on the following:
*Your activity and the activity of your political party between elections;
**This includes both in the server and in MicrasWiki.
*The votes of individual citizens in the server;
*You and your party’s performance in election campaigning.

Formula: 60% based on campaigning and activity, 40% based on the votes of people in the server.

This system relies on the Server Owner and Administrative Board. They watch and collect information, using the polls released on #polling to indicate where you and your party are at any given moment.

===What kind of activity is counted?===
The activity that gets counted in between elections and determines polling falls into the following four categories:
*Category 1 - Party Statements;
**Detailed and relevant statements by the party or party leadership in #ic-statements or #party-announcements. Inactivity and silence are penalized.
*Category 2 - Bills, Performance in Government, Debates in Federal Assembly;
**Extensive participation in debates, detailed/important bills/government actions are rewarded. Heavily flawed/non-serious bills/government actions, silence, lack of participation are heavily penalized.
*Category 3 - Tweets, Press Statements, Public Comments.
**It rewards activity in the public arena. It penalizes inactivity, shitposting, or non-serious public comments.
*Category 4 - Behavior, Wiki Participation, and Other Activity.
**It rewards participation in MicrasWiki, longevity, stability, consistent loyalty to party and individual involvement and participation. It penalizes inactivity, no MicrasWiki participation, etc.

==Campaigning==
===How to campaign===
Campaigning in the election is done in several ways:
*Submitting speeches, statements, or press releases in 🗣》ic-statements;
*Being active on 🐦》ic-tweeter;
*MicrasWiki activity:
**Your political party’s MicrasWiki page is updated;
**Your character’s MicrasWiki page is updated and well-written;
**Updating your party’s campaign section in the proper MicrasWiki articles in coordination with your party’s leaders and campaign strategy.
*Participating and performing well in occasional pre-scheduled live events like debates or interviews in 📺》ic-live-events.

===Rules of campaigning===
The rules of campaigning are simple:
* You can choose to do your campaigning in 🗣》ic-statements by using the length of a full Discord message, 2000 characters.
* Do not edit your Discord message after it has been submitted. Editing after submission one time earns you a warning. The second time will kill your post and could reflect negatively in polling.
* You can upload graphics, please use PNG or upload them to MicrasWiki and use the MicrasWiki graphic link to share the graphic.
* You are welcome to share links to documents, given that they are locked in PDF form or as a locked Google Doc in view-only mode. This is to guarantee no edits after election materials are submitted.
* Each political party or candidate can do as many or as few campaign events as they like per day.
* You can reuse speeches, but not more than twice in one election. Speeches used several times are usually called "stump speeches".
* Do not DM Administrators about election matters, period.

===Sample campaign posts===
====General campaigning====
====General statements====

===Campaign grading===
Election campaigns will be judged by the Administrative Board on the following:
* Quality of individual and party content on the Discord server and on MicrasWiki;
* Content: activity on 🗣》ic-statements, 🐦》ic-tweeter, past activity in the legislature over the previous term, etc.
* Amount of members of the party participating;
**The more members of a political party that are active creating content and participating in the election, the better!
* Past performance and achievements in the previous legislative sessions;
* Display a well-honed and communicated message that makes sense in the context of Nouvelle Alexandrie and Micras’ lore.

'''Please do not overpester or bombard Administrators about the grading, scoring, or any election matter directly.''' Bring up questions and problems in public for accountability, use the ❓》questions-and-help channel.

===What to expect from an election campaign===
Here are the basic expectations:
* Every political party will be required to start their campaign by submitting a manifesto. Include a range of policies that lay out your intentions clearly.
* Professionality is key - a good format and a well explained policy will go a long way. Write as if you are talking to the electorate, know and target your audience.
* Posting appropriate advertisements and other propaganda will help your campaign.
* Make it original! If you spam irrelevant ads or ads that are just a picture and three words, it will hurt you. Your ad should say something to the audience.
* Speeches are a fantastic way to compete in regions. Make them persuasive and to the point.
**The speeches can be long or short, as long as it is of good quality.
**Bold your main soundbyte. A soundbyte should not be longer than 12 words and have impact.
* Party broadcasts and party releases on 🌠》party-announcements are a good way for your party to promote its brand, policies, and vision. Make use of them!

Towards the end of campaigning there may be some debates organized that would take place in #ic-live-events, which is very advisable for Party Leaders to be part of. Not attending whilst being invited to will hurt the party in the election. A good performance will deliver a powerful boost to your party and its candidates down the ballot.

==The campaign and the press==
Interviews with journalists are possible if you reach out to one or if they reach out to you for one.

Live interviews can be done by journalists in #ic-live-events. In a live event, you can show the electorate what you and your party can offer the people. These are opportunities to show off your policies and make good, solid arguments.

Sample election calendar
A common general election calendar is as follows:

Day
Description
Notes
0 (Day Zero)
Election pre-polls are posted.
Dice roll one.
Your character competing in the election must have an updated and written bio page. 
1 (Day One)
Party manifesto due.
Party leader campaign launch speech.
Dice roll two.
Parties should have their wiki pages updated. Political party campaign section in general election wiki article up to date.
2-3 (Day(s) Two-Three)
Dice roll three.
General campaign activity:
Speeches;
Advertisements;
Tweets;
Wiki contributions.
The more party members you have active in general campaign activity, the better your party will perform. Consider that quality > quantity in events.
4 (Day Four)
Dice roll four.
General campaign activity:
Speeches;
Advertisements;
Tweets;
Wiki contributions.
If a live event were to happen in the election, it would most likely happen on this day:
Debate;
Sit down live interview (dice roll for difficulty).
5 (Day Five)
Results Day / Election Night
Election results are posted in the Discord server and in MicrasWiki.


General elections for the Cortes Federales generally happen every 5 to 6 months, which is 5 to 6 years in-game.

Elections usually take place over the course of several days. For the latest in any election, always check #announcements.

The election calendar, along with any important updates about the election, will always be available in that channel.
Election results
Election results are usually posted at the end of an election by the Administrators. If the results cannot be compiled exactly on Day Six and need more time, Administrators will note it immediately to everyone.

If the delay is more than 48 hours, Administrators will have to post a preliminary count that can be as simple as “an exit poll” with rough seat estimates.

Results can be done by Administrators in many ways:
Sometimes they are done in a live chat where Administrators do mock live election result broadcasts. These may include live interviews and such. You can see examples of past election night broadcasts in the Discord archives.
Results released via wiki update over the course of the results day. This is usually done in the MicrasWiki page for the election, usually can be found at “New Alexandrian general election, XXXX”, the XXXX part being replaced by the AN year.
Daily election dice roll
Every day during the election, the Server Owner or a duly designated Election Administrator will roll a one 100-sided die for each of the political parties participating in the election. 

The dice roll will determine events in the campaign trail that you will be expected to respond to in the campaign and in the press. The table above reflects the scale that we will be using. 
Election dice roll table
We, of course, apologize in advance for using a lot of US politics references - we always welcome help in determining equivalents in other countries to help clarify things.


Click on the image above to open a larger version of it.

As always, for any questions: ask in #questions-and-help.

==Free resources to use in elections==
In order to be helpful, we have tried to collect below some resources that you can use to compete in elections.

We also suggest that you check out other resources people share in #resources. If you ever find anything useful that you think will make the game better, please share it in that channel!

Maps of Nouvelle Alexandrie
Map of Micras
Wiki mark-up cheatsheet
If you have any questions, ask in #questions-and-help or in #worldbuilding.
Google Docs
I mean, you’re using it right now…
Great for writing and for delivering longer speeches/statements greater than 2000 characters (Discord text limit).
Also necessary for bills, resolutions, longer statements, speeches, and other important documents or materials.
Google Sheets
Google Slides
Google Forms
Adobe Spark
Make graphics easily and for free (it does add a watermark sadly).
Imgur
Remember Photobucket? (This is dating me, I know.) This is what it should've been. Free image hosting. Can do it with or without an account on the site.
Canva.com
Make graphics easily and for free (some free, some with watermark).
MS Paint Online: 
Because sometimes a good throwback is the way to go.
Inkscape
Free software for graphics creation and editing. (PC, Mac, Linux)
GIMP: 
Free software for graphics creation and editing. (PC, Mac, Linux)
Paint.NET: 
Free software for graphics creation and editing. (Windows only)
Pinta:
Free software for graphics creation and editing. (All platforms)
Sublime Text
A text editor for drafting posts. (Shareware with unlimited free trial)


[[Category:Meta Nouvelle Alexandrie]]