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Well, that's what we're here to determine.

I'm guessing most people would rather the person be a Citizen before being able to stand for election.

I've written a draft for the portion of a decree that would actually authorize this. Any thoughts?

Elections of the Delegate
1) Delegate elections shall begin on the first day of the months of December, March, June, and September, and run for three days. Any person who has been a Citizen for at least 60 days shall be eligible to stand for election to Delegate, and all Citizens shall be eligible to vote for Delegate. Elections shall follow the optional preferential voting system, and the results determined by instant runoff.

2) In the event the position becomes vacant, the Monarch shall attempt to fill the position with a candidate from the previous election. If this is not possible, a special election shall be called to fill the vacancy.

Authorities and Responsibilities of the Delegate
3) The Delegate shall have the authority to determine their World Assembly votes, which carries the weight of their endorsers; and shall be able to delegate this authority to others as they see fit.

4) The Delegate shall build and maintain the highest number of endorsements in the region, taking action to ensure that they are endorsed by as many World Assembly nations as possible.

5) The Delegate shall represent Wintreath in communications regarding the World Assembly, unless it would be more appropriate for the Monarch to do so.

Reaffirmation of Constitutional Privilege
6) As per Article II Section 2 of the Fundamental Laws, the Monarch may modify or repeal these authorities on either an ad-hoc basis or through modification of this Decree. As per Article II Section 5 of the Fundamental Laws, the Monarch may dismiss the elected delegate as his or her discretion.

Modification of the Decree
7) The Monarch may modify this decree at any time, and shall notifiy the regional community of doing so by creating a new post in the topic in which the decree was published detailing the modifications made.

Why have it so that the replacement comes from the previous pool of candidates? I'd either have it so that the monarch appoints the successor or appoints a placeholder until the special election.

I thought it would be a compromise that wouldn't involve a special election, but still involve people that were involved in an election. It's a very early draft, and subject to change. I have until December, at least.

I see nothing wrong with it.  I like how it stands.

I like it. Couple questions:

How will section 4 work? Are WA nations supposed to just endorse the new delegate and unendorse the old one each time it changes?

What does "delegate their authority to others" in section 3 mean?

Is there a term limit, or could one theoretically be the delegate forever?

Happy to answer your questions.

That's pretty much how Section 4 would work...just like when we transitioned from Reon to Hannah, when we changed in the future people would be asked to unendorse the old delegate and endorse the new one. It's a bit tedious, but since we would only have four elections a year I don't think it would be a problem.

Section 3 would allow the delegate to set up any system for determining the votes. For example, in many regions the delegate puts it up to a forum vote. We used to do that early in our history as well, but Reon ended the practice when he became delegate.

I'm not really a fan of term limits in NationStates...in elections, I think it's best to leave it to the people to best determine whether the incumbent should remain or not. If the fact that they've served for a long time becomes such a big issue that people care about, they'll vote to remove them from office without a term limit.

I'll just add that there's something satisfying about seeing the previous delegate lose the endorsements, and the new one suddenly gain so many. It makes it official, and after a tough election battle, it feels good for the delegate.

This is speaking from experience in The Revolutionary Council, which has sadly CTE'd.

I know you've spent some time as a delegate, @Laurentus...hypothetically, what would make you want to run for delegate here?

The WA becoming less awful?

EDIT: In all seriousness, I'm a very competitive person by nature, so the simple fact of having elections has me tempted, but for the wrong reasons. It's pretty much like a dog chasing tyres, with no thought for what to do when he catches it.

Now I know that when I'd like for you to take on something, I should make it competitive

Do so at your own peril.

* Wintermoot chuckles

Oh you.

Ok, with December coming quickly I want to finalize this...I'm just stuck on one thing. It's required for candidates to be Citizens, but should we have the elections on forums or through a poll on the region page?

Doing though the forums is how we've always done elections, but especially now that we're distancing the forums from NS and soon allowing Citizens not to maintain a nation, the idea of having nations vote is appealing and would open up the vote to people that are not interested in becoming Citizens. On the other hand, other than requiring that they be in the WA we can't verify voters on the poll as well as we can voters on the forum. Any thoughts here?

There seems to be benefits in both ways. If it was on the forum, we could discuss and tell why we vote the way we did, and we could pm you if we wanted their vote to be private, but we can't do either of those if it's a poll on the regional page.

If you did it as a poll on the regional page, then you would have to change it so not only citizens can vote because that's what your draft said.

I would probably be for having the election on the forums.