2020 Aquitaynian general election

Aquitaynian general election, 2020

8 December 2020
786 in the Commons (394 for a majority)
Opinion polls
Turnout	63.7% (0.4%)
First party Second party Third party   Leader Richard Larrow Nikolas Renaldt Simon Elswith Party Royalists People's Party Republican Leader since 8 December 2017 5 January 2002 24 January 2018 Leader's seat 349th District 221st District 350th District Last election 298 seats, 37.9% 279, 35.49% 73, 9.28% Seats won 308 291 85 Seat change 10 12 12 Popular vote 36,201,546 33,952,850 10,450,950 Percentage 39.18% 37% 10.8% Swing 1.28% 1.51% 1.52%   Fourth party Fifth party Sixth party   Leader Ethan Krosch Evelyn Varys Jacob Carlisle Party Independent Socialists Nation First Environmentalists Leader since 16 February 2014 12 June 2016 5 January 2015 Leader's seat 81st District 759th District 101st District Last election 74, 9.16% 31, 3.94% 31, 3.94% Seats won 57 26 19 Seat change 17 5 12 Popular vote 6,312,510 2,875,649 1,921,138 Percentage 7.25% 3.31% 2.41% Swing 2.15% 0.63% 1.52%
Colors denote the winning party, as shown in the main table of results.
Prime Minister before election Richard Larrow Royalist Party Elected Prime Minister Richard Larrow Royalist Party

The Aquitaynian general election of 2020 took place on Friday 8 December. Each of the 786 constituencies elected one Member of Parliament (MP) to the House of Commons. Under the guidelines set forth in the constitution, the election was held on time.

The Royalist Party, which had governed as a senior coalition partner from 2014 was defending a working majority of 17 seats against the People's Party, the official opposition led by Kirk Macklin. The Royalist Party viewed the election as the best opportunity to secure its hold on a majority in parliament and continue its agenda into 2023.

Opinion polls had shown consistent leads for the Royalist Party over the People's Party. The drastic turnaround from the typical two-party status quo in the 2017 election saw much of the ground gained by the then-newly elected Nation First movement be regained by the Royalist and People's Party, respectively. Both major parties hailed the election as a great success, given they regained almost all of the seats they had lost in the previous election to non-instutitional newcomers. The Royalist Party regained a 39% majority in the House of Commons, only 4 points removed from their 2014 high. Likewise, the People's Party regained twelve constituencies to close the gap to only 7 lost seats on aggregate from the 2014 election. The now-established Nation First party saw a net loss of 5 constituencies, who largely returned to their typical People's Party candidates after a lackluster legistlative term that saw little progress on the party's controversial base. The Republicans also came away with a net-positive result, regaining 12 seats and now holding a record-high 85 seats in the House. The Independent Socialists and Environmentalists who form the bulk of the Unified Parties Coalition, saw the largest combined loss of seats collectively losing 29 constituencies.

Electoral system

Each parliamentary constituency of Aquitayne elects one MP to the House of Commons using the STV system. If one party obtains a majority of seats, then that party is entitled to form the Government, with its leader as Prime Minister. If the election results in no single party having a majority, then there is a hung parliament. In this case, the options for forming the Government are either a minority government or a coalition.

Voting eligibility

To vote in the general election, one had to be:

• a registered voter;
• aged 18 or over on polling day;
• be an Aquitaynian citizen with single or dual citizenship;
• a resident at an address in Aquitayne or an Aquitaynian territory, or an Aquitaynian citizen living abroad who has been registered to vote in Aquitayne within the past 15 years and;
• not legally excluded from voting (felony convictions may carry a sentence of revocation of the right to vote for some convicted criminals, for example, or any criminals at large)

Individuals had to be registered to vote by midnight 14 days before voting day (8 December). A person who has two homes (such as a university student with a term-time address and lives at home during holidays) may be registered to vote at both addresses, provided they are in separate districts, and can only vote in one constituency per election.

In the lead-up to this election, it was estimated that over 2 million Aquitaynians between 18 and 35 registered to vote before the deadline, and over 200,000 were under the age of 22.

Date and cost of election

Timetable

16 June	Prime Minister Richard Larrow formally announces election date
19 June	MPs voted to dissolve Parliament
23 June	Royal Proclamation under Article II of the Constitution issued to formally dissolve parliament
23 June	Royal proclamation was issued summoning a new Parliament
24 July	Deadline (5pm) for the delivery of candidate nomination papers
24 July	Deadline (7pm) for the publication of the Statement of Nominated Persons
1 August	Earliest date where polling officers could issue polling cards to voting locations
1 September	Party primaries are held if more than one candidate for a single party files candidacy papers within the deadline in the same district as another candidate
20 September	Advertising gag closes
15 November	Deadline for proxy votes to be submitted in the mail (verified by postal stamp)
24 November	Deadline (5pm) for the public to register to vote
8 December	Voting day (polling stations opened at 8am and closed at 9pm or once voters present in a queue at or outside the polling station at 9pm had cast their vote). Counting of votes started no later than 2am on 9 December.
18 December	Parliament re-assembled
25 December	State Opening of Parliament

Cost

The cost to the taxpayer of organizing the election was $175 million NSD - slightly more than the previous election in 2014, which cost taxpayers $160 million NSD.

Parties and candidates

Unlike in other countries throughout the world, independent candidates are not authorized to run for parliament. They may, however, run in local elections. This guideline is due to the Parliamentary Standardization Act of 1894, which states that any candidate running for office in parliament must be registered with a traditional political party. Such a party can be registered with the government after 5,000 membership signatures are collected, a party head elected from the signers, and a party office established.

The leader of the party commanding a majority of support in the House of Commons is the person who is called on by the monarch to form a government as Prime Minister, while the leader of the largest party not in government becomes the Leader of the Opposition. Other parties also form shadow ministerial teams, which follow the current Prime Minister and create policy decisions based on the party's values.

The Royalist Party and the People's Party have been the two biggest parties since the creation of the modern state of Aquitayne in 1741, and have supplied all Prime Ministers since 1936. The Royalist Party maintained their leader from the 2017 election during the May Royalist Convention (2020), where the current Prime Minister, Richard Larrow, announced and secured his place as the head of the party for the upcoming election cycle. The People's Party also maintained their leader after the disappointing results of the 2017 election, Nikolas Renaldt. The leadership of the Environmentalist coalition remained in tact, and the leadership of the Republicans also maintained its previous figurehead just before the election, Simon Elswith. Nation First also maintained its place as a legitimate force in parliament for the next three years, despite losing half of their constituencies after a lackluster legislative session many experts attributed to their newfound and somewhat unexpectedly large role in government. Some of the smaller registered parties chose not to seriously run any candidates during this cycle, as they focused on local elections in 2021.

Candidates

4,205 candidates stood for election, up from 4,102 in the previous general election in 2017. The Royalist Party held candidates in 762 districts, the People's Party in 769, the Republicans in 475 districts (down from 489). The ISP ran in 575 (up from 523), and the Environmentalists in 410 districts (up from 392). Nation First had 305 registered candidates in this election cycle, a significant decline from their initial base of 482 candidates. There were a total of 782 contested districts during the election, with only four districts reporting a single candidate or only multiple candidates from the same party running.

Party selection process

As is typical of general election cycles, the national franchise of each political party will create a selection process for finding potential candidates to run that align well with the party platform and who have an excellent chance of winning a seat in parliament.

The Royalist Party opted to have local affiliate branches be tasked with finding members of their community whom they believed would stand the best chance of winning an election and who also would represent the party values. The national branch was responsible for handling vetting and receiving of candidate profiles, but the Royalist Party has kept its grassroots method for finding candidates since the early 1950's. Standing members of parliament who wished to run again were given preference over any potential candidate running against them under the Royalist Party name, which often lead to primaries being held locally to determine who stood a better chance of beating a contender. In the 2019 Royalist Party primaries, only 21 incumbent candidates lost the primary to a newcomer.

The People's Party, after the dissolution of parliament, immediately required sitting MPs to state their intention to stand, and automatically re-selected those that wanted to run again. The party then advertised for party members to reach out and announce interest a few weeks before the filing deadline to ensure background checks and vetting could be completed.

Nation First almost selectively chose candidates who had attended the Second Nation First Congress in June of 2018, and pre-selected those members who chose to run. Otherwise, it allowed local offices to reach out to potential candidates and allow the national office to conduct vetting procedures. Nation First took advantage of discontent in rural and urban areas where jobs had been lost to seize on weak showings by the Royalists and People's Party candidates.

Results

After all 786 constituencies had been declared, the results were:

308	19	26	57	85	291
Royalist	E N	N F	I S P	R E	People's Party

Party		Leader	MPs				Votes
				Of total		±		Of total		±
Royalist Party		Richard Larrow	308	7001392000000000000♠39.2%	308 / 786	10	36,201,546	39.47%		1.57%
People's Party		Nikolas Renaldt	291	7001370000000000000♠37.0%	291 / 786	12	33,664,727	37% 35.49%		1.51%
Republicans		Simon Elswith	85	7001108000000000000♠10.8%	85 / 786	12	10,450,950	11.39%		2.12%
ISP		Ethan Krosch	57	7000730000000000000♠7.3%	57 / 786	17	6,312,510	6.88%		2.51%
Nation First		Evelyn Varys	26	7000330000000000000♠3.3%	26 / 786	5	2,875,649	3.13%		0.80%
Environmentalists		Jacob Carlisle	19	7000240000000000000♠2.4%	19 / 786	12	1,921,138	2.09%		1.84%
Christian Rights Party		Jessica Albright	0	5000000000000000000♠0.0%	0 / 786		30,813	0.0%		N/A
Abolish the Monarchy Party		Thomas Cooper	0	5000000000000000000♠0.0%	0 / 786		175,548	0.17%		N/A
Constitutional Reform Party		Harris Ewing	0	5000000000000000000♠0.0%	0 / 786		76,315	0.9%		N/A
Others		N/A	0	5000000000000000000♠0.0%	0 / 786		5,447	0.0%		N/A
Total			786	100%			91,714,643