# **letiVERSITY 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. # Number 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 and including on polling day. Voters should not be directed to your server outside of the prescribed times, however. In line with §3.1 of this document, candidates should leave the polling station immediately after voting to prevent any influencing of the vote. Candidates may not return to a polling station building unless there are less than 5 minutes remaining in polling time and they remain situated off of the voting floor. Prescribed Times This rule is only considered as soon as candidates are confirmed to be enrolled in an election as posted in the #elections Discord channel. Incumbents of an office/seat being disputed in a recall election are thus restricted from campaigning as soon as a recall election is confirmed by the MEC in the #elections channel - this is the case until the campaign window opens for other candidates. 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. # 2. Discord Campaigning Channels --- 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 this website to measure character count 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 in bold at the top of the page as their official character count. 2. Campaign posts are limited to no more than 8 in any 24 hour period The MEC recommends utilising Discord’s search feature with the format from:<USERNAME#XXXX> in:<ELECTION>-campaigning (e.g. from: test#0000 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. 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 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 should be aware of when complying with Discord election conduct. Deleted posts still count towards limits 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 multimedia 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. 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. @ing 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. @fendyraglac). 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. Campaign Discords Candidates may opt to open their own Discord server to allow for further and direct discussion with the electorate about their campaign policies. Invites to these servers must be linked in campaign documents or websites. Posting the invite directly in a campaign post in a campaign channel is against the #discord-rules of the Mayflower server. # 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 10 days Unless specified in appropriate law, the MEC will allow a maximum of 10 days from the opening of a petition calling for recall or other changes to gather its required number of signatures.