Elections Act

Throughout the entire history of the April Knights, at least one election has been held a year for the position of Grandmaster. Despite this being an important process in choosing our Grandmaster, the process has never been truly standardized, relying on both precedent, tradition, and some guidelines written in our constitution. The purpose of this bill is to codify the election norms into law, set timelines for each step of an election, and introduce some minor reforms to the process.

Article I - Election Administrator

Section I - Appointment

  1. It is the duty of the Grandmaster to nominate an Election Administrator for each and every election when an election is required, at the end of a campaign. The Lower Council is to approve the nominee with a simple majority vote so they can be appointed to that office. There are no qualifications to be appointed Election Administrator aside from that they cannot be a candidate in the election.

Section II - Expectations & Powers

  1. The Election Administrator must remain impartial throughout the duration of the election. They are forbidden from running in the election, endorsing any candidates, or making any political statements about the candidates, the election, and the April Knights.
  2. The Election Administrator has the power to create a space to provide information and updates for the candidates standing for election. For example, a discord group message with all candidates.
  3. It is the duty of the Election Administrator to ensure that the debate remains civil. Should any comments be inflammatory, break our rules, or otherwise out of line the Election Administrator retains the right to remove that comment. Any comments that are removed are to be reported to the Lower Council.

Article II - Electors

Section I - Registration

  1. Registration for an election must be opened within 24 hours of the April Events conclusion, or earlier, or for any other reason if ordered by the Grandmaster. This is usually done via Reddit thread.
  2. All Oathsworn Knights are permitted to register for all elections. Registration is done by commenting in a Reddit thread created for the purpose of registration for the election.

Section II - Inconsistencies & Invalids

  1. A registration is marked inconsistent when the registrant is missing an oath, missing a battalion, missing any history within the Order of the April Knights, is not in good standing with the April Knights, or is not a member of the April Knights.
  2. Should a registration comment have any inconsistency, it shall be marked invalid and thrown out. It is the responsibility of the Elections Administrator to see that the inconsistency is corrected. The Elections Administrator is also required to inform the Lower Council of these inconsistencies and their efforts to correct them.
  3. Should an inconsistency be unable to be rectified by the time of the election, the Elections Administrator needs to mark the registration and the subsequent vote as invalid. Should this occur, the Elections Administrator must inform the Lower Council.

Article III - Candidates

While the constitution outlines what qualifications a candidate must have, it has caused confusion in the past. The purpose of this article is to amend the constitution and clarify the qualifications required to run for Grandmaster.

Section I - Constitutional Amendment for Qualifications

  1. To be eligible to run for Grandmaster, a candidate must both be an officer, and have participated in two campaigns. An officer is defined as a Knight with the rank of Sergeant or higher and a campaign is the yearly April Fool’s event.
  2. Additionally, a candidate cannot nominate themselves, and must have another Knight nominate them for the position and a second Knight to second that nomination. Only then can the nominee accept and register as a candidate for election.

Section II - Constitutional Amendment for Reduction of Eligible Candidates by 2024

The expansion of people who could run for the position of Grandmaster was necessary to address the problem of a reduced number of qualified candidates. Since then, further legislation has allowed for more people to attain the previous qualifications befitting the title of Grandmaster. The purpose of this section is to preemptively pass an amendment after the 2023 Grandmaster Election to restore that prior standard. The purpose of the delay is not to suddenly and unexpectedly prevent a Sergeant from running and give them plenty of time to attain a higher rank. The amendment will affect the qualifications of Grandmaster candidates and will be read as the following point;

  1. To be eligible to run for Grandmaster, a candidate must both have the rank of Captain or higher, and have participated in two full campaigns. A campaign is defined as the yearly Reddit April Fool’s event.

Article IV - Ballots

Section I - The Electoral System

  1. Voting is done in the method of ranked choice. The candidate to receive over half of the available votes or half of the total votes within 48 hours wins the election.
  2. Voters are to rank the candidates in order of their preference. For the first round of voting, all first choice votes are counted. The candidate with the lowest amount of first choice votes is eliminated and those voters move to their second choice. This continues until a candidate receives over 50% of the vote.

Section II - Creation of Ballots

  1. Ballots must ask for a voter's Reddit username. This is to ensure the validity of the vote and the security of the election. Ballots must also have every candidate running on the ballot and a way for the voter to rank that candidate.
  2. A Google Form template of the ballot is to be made and stored in the April Knights google drive for future use. This template will be constructed in the manner outlined by this legislation.
  3. Multiple ballot entries from the same voter shall result in their votes being marked invalid. If a voter communicates promptly and directly with the Election Officer about technical difficulties regarding their vote, unintentional duplicates will not disqualify their one vote, at the discretion of the Election Officer

Article V - Timeline of the Election

Section I - Registration

  1. As in Article II Section I, a registration thread for an election must be made within 24 hours of the April Events conclusion, or within the order given by the Grandmaster. The thread will remain open until voting begins.
  2. Nominations in the nomination thread can be accepted as long as the thread is open and it’s before the start of voting.

Section II - Debates

  1. 24 hours after two candidates have accepted their nomination, or 48 hours after any one candidate has accepted their nomination, a debate thread is to be made for Knights to ask questions and for candidates to campaign within.
  2. If only one candidate has accepted their nomination, the debate thread can be used as a Questions and Answers thread.

Section III - The Vote

  1. 7 days after the election registration has opened, voting should be held. If necessary, a delay of up to 3 additional days can be allowed to make up for any extraneous circumstances.
  2. The voting period will last for either 48 hours or until every single registered voter has voted, whichever comes first. After this period the winner will be declared unless there is a tie.

Article VI - Ties

Section I

  1. In the case of a tie between the final two candidates for office, a new debate thread will be made where both candidates will be able to have an additional debate. After three days of this new debate thread being live, a new vote will be held. This process will repeat itself until a winner can be decided upon.

Article VII - Political Speech

Section I

  1. All oathsworn Knights of the Order are permitted to exercise political speech in support or in opposition of candidates, as long as it is not inflammatory or breaks the rules of either the Subreddit or the Discord.
  2. The Election Administrator, moderators, and the Arbiters have the power to determine if posts related to the election and Knight politics are inflammatory or break our rules and have the power to remove those posts in violation.
  3. Commanders have the power to determine if posts in battalion chats or subreddits related to the election and Knight politics are inflammatory or break our rules and have the power to remove those posts in violation.

Article VIII - Enactment

Section I

  1. This act shall take effect as soon as it is voted and approved by both Councils and confirmed by the Grandmaster, pending any implementation requirements.