# Mayflower Electoral Rules
These rules are to be followed by all candidates in an election organised by the Mayflower Electoral Commission.

Candidates taking part in multiple elections at any one time shall follow the below rules for each election independently of one another. Disqualifications, however, will apply to all currently-entered elections regardless of where the disqualification originated from.

Candidates running on a joint-ticket (e.g., gubernatorial elections) shall follow the below rules for the election independently of one another. Disqualifications, however, will apply to all candidates present on the ticket.

## 1. Campaigning
These are general rules that apply to all candidates regardless of the areas they are campaigning unless explicitly stated as otherwise in this sub-section. Breaking any of these rules shall result in disqualification.

#### 1. Campaigning outside of the prescribed times is prohibited
What some may see as campaigning is subjective and it is important that candidates take that into account with all actions they undertake prior to and after a campaign window is open.

Candidate campaigning Discords are an exception to this rule. Policy and other matters may be discussed in these servers outside of the campaign window, including on polling day. Voters should not be directed to your campaign Discords outside of the prescribed times, however.

##### On Polling Day
In line with §3.1 of this document, candidates should only enter a polling station once on the day of polling, and that is only to submit their ballot. Candidates may return to a polling station building if there are less than 15 minutes remaining in polling time and they remain situated off of the voting floor.

Candidates employed by any public agency must limit their duties on polling day to those not involving the protection or security of polling stations. Candidates who are consistently found to be within close proximity of a polling station will be disqualified regardless of their employment commitments at those times.

##### When is the campaign window closed?
The campaign window is considered to be closed in two intervals during an election:

1. It is **closed** for the period of time between nominations being opened and the campaign window opening at a time the MEC will announce when publishing the list of candidates for an election.
2. It is **closed** for the entire day of the election according to Universal time, this is up until the time at which polling closes.
:::info
For all other periods of time, you can assume the campaign window is **open**.
:::

During the first interval of closure, candidates may start to organise their campaign Discord, staff, media, and endorsements. These must be organised through private channels. Any public organisation of campaigns prior to the first interval may result in premature disqualification.

Campaign Discords are subject to their own set of rules based on the campaign window.

#### 2. Threatening, undermining, blackmailing, bribing or canvassing voters in any malicious manner
Performing any of these actions regardless of the campaigning window being open or not will result in immediate disqualification.

#### 3. Spamming any group wall, Discord server or the direct messages of voters
In line with the rules already present on the Discord server, candidates should never be messaging random members of the server in order to get a member to vote for them or vote at all. This also includes members of a campaigning Discord for reasons of ambiguity.

#### 4. Organising unlawful demonstrations which disrupts pedestrians or public highways in order to promote a political candidate or message
Political campaigning should be peaceful and free of disruption to the masses. Clear endorsement of the contrary shall result in disqualification.

#### 5. Employees of the Emergency Services, the National Guard or any other public agency are prohibited from campaigning on duty or in uniform
Campaign material may contain media of candidates in uniform, however, candidates should not be using the resources and powers of their role as a medium for campaigning.

#### 6. Campaign Discord servers must be used fairly and responsibly
A candidate or group of candidates may choose to create a Discord server to allow for further and direct discussion with the electorate regarding their campaign policies.

*Campaign servers are any Discord server linked to in campaign media from candidates.* If candidates opt to use them, usage of them is governed by the following rules to ensure fair and responsible use:

- Campaign servers must only be used for one election
- Campaign servers must not be created prior to the first interval of campaign closure
- Campaign servers must not be used as a proxy for linking to other Discord servers
- Invites to a campaign server must only be found in linked campaign media such as documents, websites, and/or images. Invites should not be found in the raw text posted in the campaigning channels
## 2. Discord Campaigning Posts
This section details the usage of official campaigning channels organised and maintained by the MEC. These are the channels accessible in the main State of Mayflower Discord for exclusive use by election candidates. These rules only apply for these types of channels and are measured against on an individual basis.

#### 1. Campaign posts are limited to messages containing no more than 800 characters of text. This includes all letters, numbers, symbols, spaces, formatting characters, emojis, and links
Using wordcounter.com to measure the character count of posts will result in the same metrics that the MEC use. Using other websites may result in a different count and risks disqualification.

Candidates should paste their **raw message** to be posted into this tool before posting - taking the characters numbers at the top of the page as their official character count.


#### 2. Campaign posts are limited to no more than 8 in any continuous 24 hour period
The MEC recommends utilising Discord’s search feature with the format `from:<USERNAME#XXXX> in:<ELECTION>-campaigning` (e.g. from: `Patrick Star#8923 in: senate-campaigning`) to retrieve all of their campaigning posts in their campaigning channel. Candidates should count the number of messages they have posted in the past 24 hours. Candidates counting less than 8 posts in the past 24 hours may post.

:::danger
Some candidates mistakenly understand this rule as “no more than 8 posts in *a day*” rather than “no more than 8 posts in *any 24 hour period*”. The MEC will disqualify if it is able to find ***any* continuous period of 24 hours** where a candidate has posted more than 8 times.
:::

#### 3. Campaign posts must be at least 30 minutes apart from one another
Candidates should check to ensure there is no post in the 30 minutes from themselves prior to sending a new post. Candidates should not try to post exactly as 30 minutes elapse from a previous post or may risk being seconds under the 30 minutes and risk disqualification.

### **Important Factors**
This section details factors the MEC consider and candidates **must be aware of** when complying with Discord election conduct.

#### Deleting campaign posts
Candidates should aim to never delete messages unless absolutely necessary as it may lead to breaking other rules by mistake if a deleted post is forgotten about.

*Messages that are automatically deleted as a result of some Discord bot, like Dyno, are exempt from this. If this happens, candidates are free to post again and may ignore the previously deleted message. The MEC is able to tell the difference.*

#### Campaign media
Discord link embedding is not enabled in campaigning channels to conserve space in the campaigning channel. It is for this reason that images and videos should be attached as a file upload rather than a URL link to the source.


Candidate should first choose to upload campaign media, then paste their raw campaign post in the box as seen above.

:::danger
Linking by URL to an image in the same campaign post will result in no image being rendered unless clicked upon and only takes up valuable character count.
:::

#### Mentioning Users
Candidates may choose to list endorsements of their campaign from other members. This should be formatted in plain text rather than a mention (e.g. `@SERR4TED`). Formatting as mentions may result in an unnecessary disqualification as the actual raw text used by Discord will not have the same number of characters as originally identified.

## 3. Polling Stations
#### 1. Voters may not loiter in polling stations and must leave after they have cast their vote
The polling station shall be kept clear at all times and voters should have a quick and seamless experience voting.

#### 2. Blocking or obstructing a polling station will result in criminal charges
The electorate should not be barred from entering a polling station and submitting their ballot.

## 4. Petitions
The MEC will conduct any petitions as required in legislation, within the `#polls` Discord channel. This channel is restricted to Citizens of the State of Mayflower.

#### 1. Signatures must reach a required amount within 7 days
Unless specified in appropriate law, the MEC will allow a maximum of 7 days from the opening of a petition calling for recall or other changes to gather its required number of signatures.