System for the royal elections as of right now:

Candidates.

Tales from the Deep, a crew that right now is by far the largest, can have a max of 3 candidates, preferably two.
All the rest of active crews with 2+ SO+ members (that is, adding up SOs and/or Captain) 30+ members may have one or two.
Crews with only one SO+ active member (SO or Captain) right now, may have one.
Crews which are not very active right now (Burning Stars, Draconic Visage, The Riddlers) and our common crew Sum of Parts would have no candidates.

Voting process. Each crew would have one vote "per se", automatically. Besides that, several individual members of the flag would have voting right too (all meant for actual non-dormant/retired members):

* Monarch & Royals - one vote each.
* Captains of each crew - one vote each. Could be delegated to First Mate, or not given if chosen to.
* Titled members - one vote each. Could be not given if chosen to.

Clearly enough, if someone had two of these roles (eg Captain and Titled), they would not have two votes, but one.


Right now this would mean (today Saturday there might still be some change):

* Tales from the Deep - 1 + 2 (Boom, Lj, Starsha) + 1 (Sedna) = 5 votes
* Apollo's Oracle - 1 + 2 (Rax, Vlack) = 3
* Behind The Mask - 1 + 2 (Chorleychick, Scarydan) = 3
* The Effect - 1 + 1 (Basenji) = 2
* Delicious Deviants - 1+ 2 (Mushhead, Mysteri)=3
* Tigers from Egypt - 1 + 1 (Tigerback) = 2
* The Red Devils --------> 1 (only Captain is SO+) - same reasoning as with The Wisdom
* The Wisdom -----------> 2 (crew run by two very active co-Captains) - should be 3 counting both titled members, but I do hope everyone considers in the fact it is a rather small crew and 3 votes might be really excessive - trying to be fair...
* Wonderfull Pirates -----> 1 (only one SO+ active member) - same reasoning as with The Wisdom
* Lunatic Fringe ----------> 1 (only Captain is SO+) - same reasoning as with The Wisdom

TOTAL 22 votes right now


Comments

1. I am not sure who started a certain rumour that large crews (20+ members) were granted 2 royals and 1 titled member. As the inherent concept of the words "democracy" and "elections" transfer, no one can be granted royals, but right to forward candidates and to vote. The royals are voted and elected or not. Please do come to me with any concerns or issues you have about this. Thanks.

2. Since we are a bit short on time and new to this process, I suggest each crew manages internally their votes as they please. Either they make one group-agreed-on vote (or the crew trusts such a decision on the Captain's or someone else's), and the others are individually taken by the persons with individual right to vote; or they decide as a group on each one of all the votes corresponding to them.

3. It was self-obvious to me, but apparently not to other players. Probably because it was imbued into me from experience in League of Light. A crew cannot vote for their own candidates. If we make a totally anonymous voting system that might be hard to check, but the final way to vote will be decided upon today or tomorrow - have to talk with the expert on that ^_^ - Important! In the end, we have decided to make it with PMs this time. PM Sedna with the votes of your crew (for example, crew "Dummies" has right to 3 votes and votes for candidates "Zombie", "Skellie" and "Gorgonyx"). The candidates will be announced on midnight between Thursday and Friday (game time), and numbers of votes will be available if needed be, for transparency purposes.

4. A crew can choose to use their votes as they please, at least for this time. All for one sole candidate, or all for different ones (maybe fairer?).

5. I do hope no one is annoyed if, after the elections, I run a bit of a survey and talk to each Captain to know how these issues were dealt with in their crews, and what advantages and disadvantages the system had; this would be highly useful to prepare something similar but improved, or different if it proved useless, with much more time, for the next elections. And besides, a system that would be voted upon and approved by the board of royals, calmly, properly, democratically, not in a hurry with the little feedback I could gather in a couple days now, yay!

After consultation with the official lawyer/advisor of the flag, there has been a piece of information that we've found out necessary to add and specify about the election system, to make it fairer and give everyone chances:

In this document, as of March '09, when we are electing a panel of royals, whenever a "vote" is mentioned, it was not specified whether it was a vote for one person or several. After deliberation, we have concluded a fair and uncomplicated system would consist of each vote being for 3 people. So the crew agrees on 3 people to vote upon, and each added vote represented by a Monarch/Titled member/Captain is for 3 people too, and can be also agreed upon or made individually. Remember that none of those votes can be for members of your crew! ^_^

Please contact me for any questions. Voting starts this midnight and goes on during all Wednesday and Thursday. Do not leave it for last minute, because new royals will be put up the midnight between Thursday and Friday. Submit the votes to me via a PM in flag forums. Thank you!

Love,

Sedna

* Tales from the Deep - 1 + 3 (Bernicus, Lj, Cuilean) + 1 (Sedna) = 5 votes
* Poison Dagger - 1 + 3 (Wcwzyddar, Wcwdevil, Wcwtammy) = 4 votes
* Death Commanders - 1 + 1 (Jakester) = 2 votes
* Behind The Mask - 1 + 2 (Chorleychick, Zachmi) = 3 votes
* Wonderfull Pirates -----> - same reasoning as with The Wisdom - 2 votes (SO and Captain)
* Burning Stars -----> - same reasoning as with The Wisdom - 2 votes (2 SOs)
* Tigers from Egypt - 1 + 1 (Tigerback) = 2 votes
* The Wisdom -----------> 2 votes (crew run by two very active co-Captains) - should be 3 counting both titled members, but I do hope everyone considers in the fact it is a rather small crew and 3 votes might be really excessive - trying to be fair...
* The Red Devils ---------> 1 vote