Election of Officers

The Election of Officers is a vote held in the Deliberative Senate of the Realm at the start of the legislative year. It occurs on the 3rd day of Ascending Air, between acceptance of new Deliberative appointees in the Parade of Judicious Legislators on the 1st, and the first legislative act of the year, the Imperial Budget. Its procedures were decided upon by the Scarlet Empress when she founded the Deliberative, and have remained little changed in the centuries since.

The Election selects the three officers of the Greater Chamber (Mistress of the Deliberative, Incorruptible Secretary, and Guardian of Discourse), and their Lesser Chamber counterparts.

In an initial round of voting, any member of the appropriate Chamber may nominate themselves to stand for election. This tends to result in dozens of candidates (though, following the extreme manipulations seen in the Election of Officers RY569, the Deliberative has not seen a majority of its members standing for election). Once those who wish each post have named themselves, the Chamber members declare support for one of these numerous candidates, and the three candidates with the most members supporting go on to stand in the election proper. Should there be a tie, those who are tied must stand up in the Chamber until one of them steps down from contention for the post: this is a procedure based quite literally on posture, and should a candidate be forced from their feet during this time, they are eliminated even if they did not wish it. These selections take place in strict order: Mistress, Secretary, Guardian, and only once the third is complete may the final election begin.

Once the first round has begun, the Deliberative is allowed no break or recess until all officers have been selected, and there is no opportunity to change a vote once it is placed. Many veteran politicians have bemoaned this as limiting negotiation and maneuvering in response to the the changing slate of candidates, and a few have voiced opinion that this is not a flaw, but by design to suit the needs of the Empress.

The Election of Candidates sees three candidates for each post stand in turn (Mistress, Secretary, Guardian), and open debate amongst the members of the Chamber over their merits. This is followed by a vote, where the candidate with the largest number of votes is declared the winner. Such a system means that the winning candidate, while having more support than her opponents, nearly always has a larger number of colleagues who voted against her appointment than voted for it.

A member of the Deliberative may stand for election in as many posts as they wish, but may only occupy one. As the most powerful post (Mistress) is decided first, a Senator who stood for Mistress and Guardian and then won both would become Mistress briefly and then become Guardian, automatically being stripped of their previous post.