Elections

The purpose of this law is to codify the necessary election traditions into formal law, set timelines for each step of an election, and serve as a set of instructions for the Election Administrator.

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.
2. The Grandmaster must select the Election Administrator before Jan 7th of the election year.

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 no later than 24 hours after the conclusion of the April Event, or for any other reason if ordered by the Grandmaster. This is usually done via Reddit thread. Registration closes at the end of the voting window.
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.
3. All Oathsworn Knights that register to vote will be notified when the voting window opens. This allows Knights to indicate that they are interested in participating in the election while they are active in the community. Registrations made after the voting window has begun do not need to be notified.
4. The Elections Administrator is responsible for ensuring that all registered Knights are notified, but they may delegate the work to volunteers. There is no restriction on who may notify Knights to vote; this can include the Grandmaster Candidates.
5. During the voting window, the Elections Administrator may choose to share a list of Knights who have not yet voted, and call for another round of notifications to this smaller list.

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 - Ballots

Section I - The Electoral System

1. Voting is done in the method of ranked choice. The candidate to receive over half of the total valid votes within the voting period 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. The ballots may also request additional identifying information, such as battalion and Discord name. 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. The Google Forms feature “Shuffle Option Order” must be enabled.
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 IV - Timeline of the Election

Section I - Registration

1. The registration thread for the next election opens as detailed in Article 2, Section 1. The registration thread remains open until the end of the voting window of the next election.

Section II - Nominations

1. The Election Administrator is chosen before January 7th. The Election Administrator will begin the election process by opening nominations between January 7th and Jan 15th. This is to prevent politics from being discussed during the holiday.
2. The Election Administrator will begin the election process by announcing that Grandmaster nominations are now being accepted in the registration thread. Only nominations made after this announcement can be accepted. Nominations can be accepted as long as the thread is open and it’s before the start of voting.

Section III - Debates

1. No later than 2 days after any 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 IV - The Vote

1. 7 days after the election nominations have opened, voting should be held. If necessary, an extension of up to 3 additional days can be granted at the Election Administrator’s discretion.
2. The voting period will last for either 14 days or until every single registered voter has voted, whichever comes first. After this period the winner will be declared unless there is a tie.
3. As noted in Article 2, Section 1, notifications will be sent to all Knights who registered to vote. A second wave of notifications may be authorized to send to Knights that do not vote within the first 7 days.

Article V - 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 VI - 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 or moderators 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 VII - 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.