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1st Congressional By-Election, July 2010
When a member of Congress loses their seat, resigns, or is elected Chancellor, a by-election must occur to fill the seat. The first action of the 1st Congressional Assembly was to elect their Chancellor, Independent Assemblyman TheDarkMessiah. In order to fill his seat in the Congressional Assembly, Electoral Officer offtopic/Demosthenes opened nominations for a by-election.
Campaigning and Overview
On July 27, 2010, Electoral Officer offtopic/Demosthenes opened nominations for candidates to fill his seat. He established a set of five rules for acceptable nominations:
- They must be in the form of “I nominate/endorse X”.
- The top three nominees will advance to the actual by-election poll.
- A candidate may choose to affiliate with a party. If this is the case, they must indicate it themselves.
- A nominee must accept their initial nomination.
- No one can nominate conditionally or on behalf of someone else.
randomideaguy (SDP) nominated January-First-of-May (I). He was also endorsed by offtopic/civfanatic (MCP), Penlope (SDP), offtopic/razers are for fish (SDP), offtopic/fortyseven (NIP), and Richard Harrow (R).
offtopic/charl (SDP) nominated 010camaro (I), arguing “I know this won't be popular with my party, but damn it the guy deserves a seat somewhere in the government he created.” He was also endorsed by offtopic/Zacoftheaxes (MCP), offtopic/Paladin (NIP), and randomideaguy (SDP).
Chancellor TheDarkMessiah (I) nominated his brother, offtopic/Patches (I). He was also endorsed by offtopic/maverick (I), offtopic/Douglas (I), Richard Harrow (R), offtopic/charl (SDP), offtopic/Krall (I), and randomideaguy (SDP).
offtopic/komeyta (I) nominated offtopic/Ward (DGDP). He was also endorsed by offtopic/LightInfa (R). Unfortunately, Ward didn't win enough endorsements to reach the final vote.
Demosthenes closed the nominations on July 28, confirming that Patches (I), January First-of-May (I), and 010camaro (I) would participate in the final vote. Polls opened later that day and were scheduled to remain open for 24 hours.
Election
The 1st Congressional By-election was held from July 28 to July 29, 2010. The results were released by Demosthenes on July 29.
| Candidates | Party | Votes | Percentage |
|---|---|---|---|
| offtopic/Patches | Independent | 20 | 54.05% |
| January-First-of-May | Independent | 6 | 16.22% |
| 010camaro | Independent | 11 | 29.73% |
Patches was elected to the Congressional Assembly. Turnout for this election was 37, up 8.82% from the 2010 Congressional Election.