January 2022 Delegate election

January 2022 Delegate election

1‒19 January 2022
Registered	1125 regional WA members
Turnout	17.07%
Candidate PenguinPies Party Independent Popular vote 136 Percentage 70.83%
Delegate before election Amerion Elected Delegate PenguinPies

The January 2022 Delegate election was an election held in the South Pacific from 1‒19 January 2022 to elect the next Delegate of the South Pacific. PenguinPies was the sole candidate, both for the two slots for advancing from the Assembly vote to the on-site poll, as well as later in that on-site poll. Ultimately, she beat the Re-Open Nominations option comfortably in both rounds and became the Delegate-Elect.

Background

Delegate elections in the South Pacific take place every six months, with one scheduled in January and another in July. According to the Elections Act, a Delegate election had to be called on the 1st of January, 2022.

Electoral System

Main article: Delegate of the South Pacific § Election

The Delegate is elected in a two-step process. In a first round, held on the forums, legislators of the South Pacific determine two advancing candidates using approval voting. The top-two (or more, should there be a tie) most-approved candidates move on to a regional poll held on-site, where regional World Assembly member nations ultimately vote on the winner using the two-round system.

The declarations and campaigning periods would run concurrently for a week, after which the first round of voting would be held, lasting three days. A day after this concludes, the second round of voting would commence, with the poll remaining open for another week. Thereafter, the Election Commissioner would proclaim the results.

Uncertainty about the proper procedure for Delegate elections arose when it became increasingly clear that PenguinPies would be the only candidate standing. In multiple Discord discussions, some argued that ‒ should PenguinPies receive more than 50% approval ‒ both she and the Re-Open Nominations option as the top-two approved candidates would move to the on-site poll and otherwise the election would completely restart, others believed that also in the former case the election process ‒ only for the single remaining slot, should PenguinPies reach the 50% threshold ‒ would have to restart, since the Re-Open Nominations "candidate" would have received less than 50% approval and the Elections Act prevents any candidate who has not reached this threshold from moving on. Ultimately, the Cabinet issued an Executive Order on the matter, ordering the election to proceed in the former of the two possible manners. The Assembly approved the Executive Order on January 17th.

Candidate

The sole candidate running in the election was PenguinPies; Sandaoguo had accepted his nomination but didn't post a campaign in time and was thus ineligible to be included on the ballot. Nominations were declined by Griffindor, Purple Hyacinth, and Belschaft. Tsunamy, Farengeto, anjo, Volaworand, Rebeltopia, Concrete Slab, and Tin the Free never responded to theirs.

Declared Candidates
Bolded candidates are incumbents. Italicized candidates withdrew from the election. Struck candidates were disqualified from the race.
Candidate			Political office(s)	Campaign
		PenguinPies	Member of the Council on Regional Security (since May 2020) Other offices Member of the Legislator Committee	Penguin 22
		Sandaoguo	Member of the Council on Regional Security (since December 2016) Other offices OWL Senior Staff Advisor to the Minister of Foreign Affairs	No campaign

Campaign

Penguin's campaign was relatively short. She declared that, while she knew she couldn't live up to outgoing Delegate Amerion, she'd nonetheless like to continue a number of his projects, for which she'd like to work with the Ministry of Engagement. Crossover activities with other Ministries were also on her agenda. She conceded to know little about the World Assembly and the Office of World Assembly Legislation, but said that she had full faith in it and its work. Lastly, she explained the simplicity of her campaign with her belief that TSP was pretty good as-is and just wanted it to be the best version it can be, and for this, as Delegate, she'd work with most and take suggestions from all.

Results

On the 11th of December, 2021, Election Commissioner Kris Kringle proclaimed the results of the first round of the election. The second round's results were certified on the 19th.

First Round

Results: First Round
Green background denotes winning candidates. Red background denotes eliminated candidates. ✓ and ✗ denote the status of any incumbent, win or lose respectively.
Candidate	Approvals
PenguinPies	30	88.24%
Re-Open Nominations	4	11.76%
Invalid ballots	1	2.86%

Second Round

Results: Second Round
Green background denotes winning candidates. Red background denotes eliminated candidates. ✓ and ✗ denote the status of any incumbent, win or lose respectively.
Candidate	Votes
PenguinPies	136	70.83%
Re-Open Nominations	56	29.17%
Invalid ballots	0	0%

Transition

Following the Election Commissioner declaring her the Delegate-elect, PenguinPies was tasked with gathering enough on-site endorsements to attain the Delegate seat.

In order to help with the transition, outgoing Delegate Amerion appointed PenguinPies to a top-of-the-list Regional Officer position with the title "Elected-Delegate" (due to naming restrictions) and changed the World Factbook Entry to ask nations to endorse her on the 20th of January; concurrently, a regional telegram asking nations to endorse the Delegate-elect was sent. Another such telegram was sent ten days later.

The Southern World Assembly iNitiative was also adjusted to ask nations to endorse PenguinPies instead of Amerion on the 20th of January, and periodically pushed notices to nations not endorsing her yet asking to do so. In a parallel effort, PenguinPies sent direct telegrams to such nations.

Once PenguinPies was comfortably ahead of Kringalia, the third-most endorsed nation at the time, in number of endorsements, Prime Minister HumanSanity pinged all South Pacifican citizens on the regional Discord server on February 13th, once again requesting nations endorse PenguinPies, but now also temporarily un-endorse Amerion. With the endorsement gap between Amerion and PenguinPies now shrinking ever faster, in a final push, HumanSanity sent one last regional telegram on the 18th and had all available SPSF Tidal Force members return to the TSP region and endorse PenguinPies.

Thus, on the major update of February 19th, 2022, PenguinPies finally reached enough endorsements to overtake Amerion and was placed in the in-game Delegate seat. In total, this Delegate transition finished in just under a month.