Elections in Gabrielland
Elections in Gabrielland are held to elect government officials and other elected posts at a national, realm, regional, provincial levels, and local levels. Elections in all five levels of government exists. At the national level, only one of the three heads of states is elected, that being the Head of the New Frontier. All members of the provincial and regional legislatures are elected directly by the people using varying methods such as first pass the post, open list proportional representation, closed list proportional representation, and ranked voting to name a few. Regions and provinces may choose their own electoral system in the process. Members of the realm legislature and lower house of the national legislature are elected directly with multi member constituencies for both, and using an open list proportional representation for the realm parliament and ranked open list proportional representation for the lower house of the national parliament.
The constitution of 2000 has outlined the base of Gabrielt elections, mandating every level of government to conduct its own elections according to laws set by each body. The constitution also regulates the maximum term length of the head of the New Frontier, seat allocations in the national and realm parliament, as well as the number of seats a regional and provincial parliament may haave based on their population size. Thus, elections are administered and conducted at the provincial level as they set the regulations and proceedings regarding all elections. However, the timing in which subdivisions can conduct elections are determined by the national parliament, but subdivisions are still entirely free to determinee the term lengths and limits of each office.
Initially, only men were able to vote. Via the 1953 12th amendment to the Gabrielt constitution, women were allowed to vote for the first time in the 1954 local elections. Until 1964, no elections comission or board existed. The Elections Commission was established in 1964 to conduct all elections from local to national, whereas previously individual provinces would run the elections. The Election Watch was also created alongside the EC to monitor elections, and has the sole authoritative jurisdiction to report elections to the respective courts for allegations of fraud. Starting in 1970, all candidates must report their wealth and assets to the EC via a bill introduced in 1969. The Election Comission was also given the authority to disqualify candidates for failing to meet their criteria of selection. The EC and EW was suspended between 1976 and 1985 during the Gabrielt civil war and Arsyan Republic. Only the EC was refounded in 1985 as the sole election monitor and regulator, as states (and now various subdivisions) run the election according to their own rules and criteria.
Voting
Voting methods
Traditionally, each subdivision is free to choose its own type of voting method for its own local elections. Nationally, a multiple non-transferable vote is used for both the Gabrielt and Arsyan People's Communion and the Gabrielt and Arsyan Elder's Communion, both elected through multi-candidate constituencies.
National elections
There are two types of national elections, namely elections to the Gabrielt and Arsyan People's Communion (lower house) and the Gabrielt and Arsyan Elders' communion (upper house, also commonly the senate of Gabrielland). Both elections utilize a multiple non-transferable vote system in multi-candidate constituencies. For the lower house, constituencies are created based on provincial lines based on population, ranging from 3 to 8 representatives per constituency. Voters possess the same amount of votes as there are required candidates to fill, and filling out less than the maximum is allowed. All votes are treated as one vote, and all candidates who place above the required amount of seats to be filled are elected to the national parliament.
Elections to the Gabrielt and Arsyan Elders' Communion occur in a similar manner to the lower house. Elders or senators are chosen in three constituencies with a fixed amount of elders per constituency, namely 38 for Gabrielland, 10 for the Arsyan Realms, and 2 for the new frontier. Elections occur in a staggered pattern, with each senator falling into one of four classes. The classes rotate with each election cycle, and Senators are up for reelection once every eight years. The voting method is also similar to the lower house, with multiple non-transferable vote being used. Different from the lower house is the ability for voters to vote for more than the required amount of candidates by up to two votes. The candidate with the highest amount of votes and that meet the quota for that constituency and class at the time of the election are elected to the upper house of Gabrielland.
While some constituencies have term limits (as a ruling from either the province or region), others do not.
Realm elections
Elections to determine representatives for the realm parliament are the only elections that exist within the realm level for Gabrielland and Arsyan. Each region is alotted a set number of representatives to represent their region in the lower house of the realm parliament, known as different names in diferent realms. The realm parliament does not have an upper house as it is a unicameral body. Each region possess different methods of election to the realm parliament, with some regions having a unified voting method for the entire region, while others leaving up to the provinces to decide the method used for the realm elections. Realm elections occur once every five years, occuring in years ending in a multiple of 5.
In the New Frontier, the selection of the Head of the New Frontier occurs during the same time as the realm parliament elections. The selection of the de-facto ruler of the New Frontier serves to elect a representative that would form the three-member collective head of state of Gabrielland representing the new frontier. A simple two-round system is used across the New Frontier.
Regional elections
There are various forms of regional elections in Gabrielland. One notable election at the regional level, namely the lower house of the individual regional legislatures, are elected through a variety of methods depending on if the legislature of a specific region or province have agreed on a voting method. Some regions have already unified their voting methods while others still leave to their provinces to determine the method used in the lower house elections. Recently, a growing number of regions have ratified the use of open-list proportional representation. The upper house of the regional legislature are unelected as they are appointed by the provincial parliaments allocated by population of the province in a specific region.
Another election which all regions have is the election of a region head. Elections for the region head also vary according to region, with the most popular method of electing a region head being the two-round system. Different from the legislative branch elections, region head elections mandate that each region possess a unified voting method.
Provincial elections
One form of provincial elections is the election of legislators to their respective provincial legislatures. Each province has their own method of voting in their own legislators, although some regions have standardized their respective voting methods even for provincial elections. Most of the New Frontier have adopted some form of non-transferable vote in their provincial elections. Municipalities of each province are not allowed to conduct or to promulgate their own bills or regulations that determine the voting method of their respective municipalities. As a result, methods of provincial elections and regional elections are often the same, except for those whose regions have standardized the voting method in the regional elections. There are no elections to the upper house of provincial legislatures as all provincial legislatures are mandated to be unicameral by the 2000 constitution.
Provinces are led by governors, who in turn are mainly elected through a simple two-round system, though some provinces may opt to have either a first pass the post system or an instant-runoff system.
Local elections
Local elections form the bulk of elections in Gabrielland for their sheer amount of elected officials and positions mandated by each respective subdivision. Each subdivision may choose which positions are elected positions, although all subdivisions mandate the direct election of mayor and municipality councillors through direct election. Other posts such as the municipality sheriff or the city sheriff are up to the respective provinces or regions to decide if such position is an elected position. The voting method used in each of these elections highly depends on the province or region of where the election is taking place and the very nature of the election. Councillors are usually elected through multiple non-transferable votes, while other executive positions are either elected via a first-pass-the-post system or a two-round system.
Eligibility
Voter eligibility is left to the subdivisions to decide the details of who gets to to vote in different types of elections. The constitution of Gabrielland protects all Gabrielt citizens over the age of 17 to vote in all types of elections unless otherwise stated by the rule of law in each subdivision. It is illegal to discriminate against color, race, religion, or ethnicity in terms of voting practices, however other than the terms protected by the constitution, the individual subdivisions get to decide. Some provinces revoke the voting rights of all criminals serving a prison sentence while restoring them after being released, while some provinces allow for criminals to vote provided they are not serving a sentence more than the limit of each province or region.
Gabrielts abroad may only take part in national elections, conducted through the embassy or liasion office for that specific region. Overseas voters must register with the embassy or office one month prior to the election being held.
Registration
All Gabrielts wishing to vote must register themsleves to the municipality office. Usually, the process is done automatically, and voters only need to verify their registration by coming to their respective municipality offices once they turn 17. Once a citizen has been registered to vote, they stay on that system's registry until they die, have their voting rights revoked by the province or region, or move to another location, in which voters have the responsibility to re-register themselves with their new municipality registration system. Automatically, the system removes the registration of such individual from their previous location.
If a citizen fails to verify their registration before the next election, they are still able to vote in the national elections, and elections of lower levels depends on the regulations and laws of each individual subdivisions using additional ballots. Failing to re-register after moving means that an individual is barred from participating in their new locale's election, as their credentials and registration still match and sync with their old location. Proving one's registration upon voting could be done in a variety of ways across the entire country, either using a national ID card, driver's license, passport, or ohter official national documents as the registration has been incorporated into a national database of registries.
Mail votes
Mail votes, or also commonly known as postal votes, were introduced in the 2004 national elections as a way for voters unable to go the polling station on the day of election. Depending on the regulations of each individual subdivision, mail votes must be registered beforehand each cycle or be enrolled in such system indefinitely until the voter requests to be put off the mail vote system. Regulations as to who can enroll in a mail vote system vary depending on subdivision, although generally each individual subdivision requires the voter to send in a reason for their unability to come to the polling station on the day of election. Some subdivisions do not require a reason or alibi and will give all applicants a mail vote. Starting in 2017, the city of Sangur has put all its citizens into the mail-vote system, closing all of the in-person polling stations during the 2018 national elections in an attempt to increase voter participation.
Voters are required to sign their ballots upon delivery to be matched with the signature on the national database. For this reason, some provinces do not allow mail votes at all for the concern of fraud and/or lack of equipment and manpower to perform this task. Voters may drop off their ballots in post offices, mailboxes, or designated ballot drop-offs scattered throughout the vicinity. The accpetance of these ballots after election day depends on the subdivisions. While some subdivisions mandate that all mail votes must arrive on or before election day, some provinces allow up to five days after election day provided the ballot was sent on or before election day.
Voters abroad may also request a mail vote, especially if one's location is far from a Gabrielt embassy or liasion office. In this case, ballots would be delivered to each voter's domicile at the cost of the Gabrielt embassy, and must be returned one week before election day to be transported back to Gabrielland for counting.
Voting equipment
As of 2020, no national election equipment voting scheme has been issued. Similar to voting methods and other regulations related to elections, individual regions and provinces decide the equipment used in elections. Several regions have enacted a mandatory electronic machine voting system, usually richer regions, while most of the poorer communities still use hand-counted ballot paper. As a result, most of the election results in the southern portion of the country are slower to be reported due to the manual nature of the counting. An additional requirement for all voting machines is for all equipment to be hand-counted if requested, and even in electronic machine voting systems a recap of the votes cast is created upon the vote being registered.
Ballot
The ballot of each election depends on the type of voting equipment used by each region or province. Ballot papers vary throughout the country for all elections below the national level. At the national level, ballot papers contain the names of all the candidates based on party affiliation, both for the lower house and the upper house. Usually, ballot paper design, size, and build are determined by the Elections Commission. In the 2018 national elections, the ballot paper used was a modified A2 paper to fit in the growing number of candidates and parties participating in the election. The same convention was used in the 2020 national elections.
In regions or provinces which use an electronic voting machine, special conventions are designed to make the interface look similar to a paper ballot, but operated electronically. These electronic voting machines also print their respective ballots on paper in the occasion of a hand recount or audit.
Some local elections integrate all the ballots into one singular piece of paper due to the low volume of the vote and candidates contesting in the election. Some provinces with a proportional closed-list system may also opt to integrate their legislative elections with the integrated ballot for local elections.
Levels
National elections
The only national elections mandated by the constitution are the direct elections to the Gabrielt and Arsyan People's Communion (lower house) and to the Gabrielt and Arsyan Elders' Communion (upper house) through a multi-candidate constituency using a mutliple non-transferable vote.
Gabrielt and Arsyan People's Communion
The Gabrielt and Arsyan People's Communion is the directly-elected lower house of the Gabrielt legislature, consisting of 500 members elected through multi-candidate constituencies with each constituency sending between 3 to 8 representative based on population. The constituencies get reapportioned once every ten years after the national census held once every ten years. Members are called representatives, and serve for two years each term, meaning that elections to the lower house of Gabrielland occurs every two years, or during years which is a multiple of 2 (0, 2, 4, 6, 8).
Special for the national elections including the elections to the lower house, a standardized method of election exists for the lower house and the upper house. For the lower house, votes are cast in single non-transferable votes using a open-list proportional representation method calculated using the D'Hondt method. As a result, voters cast only one vote per ballot. Individual constituencies are not divided into smaller constituencies, and candidates which pass the D'Hondt quota are elected to the lower house.
Some jurisdictions may implement a term length, while others do not. In jurisdictions without a term length, incubments have a much higher chance of getting reelected. Jurisdictions also have different definitions and regulations as to the limit a representative can serve, ranging from four terms (8 years) to ten terms (20 years).
Gabrielt and Arsyan Elders' Communion
The Gabrielt and Arsyan Elders' Communion, more colloquially referred to the Gabrielt Senate, is the directly-elected upper house of the Gabrielt legislature, comprising of 50 members apportioned according to the constitution, meaning to change the number of senators apportioned to each constituency will require a constitutional amendment. Members are either called elders or senators, with the term senator being favored by international media. The 50 members are elected from three constituencies which coincide with the three realms of Gabrielland. 38 elders originate from the Gabrielt Realm, 10 from the Arsyan Realms, and 2 from the New Frontier. There are no term limits for the upper house.
Elders serve an 8 year term, but not all seats are up for reelection every time. Senators are divided into four "stages" which determine their election. The four stages are staggered so that only one stage is up for election every cycle. The timing of the elections occur at the same time as the elections to the lower house, during years which are a multiple of 2.
Upper house elections are conducted using a multiple non-transferable vote using an open-list system. Different from the lower house elections, upper house elections do not use a proportional system, and top candidates are instantly elected based on the amount of seats up for election in that constituency.