Section 1

A. Federal Elections

A.1. Timing and Access

To ensure that all Citizens have a meaningful opportunity to vote, national elections for federal office shall be held over four continuous days, beginning on the first Tuesday in November and ending on the following Friday. The timing, duration, and availability of polling for any federal special election must be materially the same as for regularly scheduled federal elections, including continuous access throughout the designated voting period.

Polls must remain open and accessible for the entire voting period, without interruption. All eligible Citizens must be able to cast their vote at a time that aligns with their individual circumstances, including overnight and off-peak hours.

In the event of extenuating circumstances, the Federal Election Commission may delay or pause the election in a given region until the vote can be safely and fairly completed.

A.2. Staffing

Staffing of polling locations shall be fulfilled through a compulsory lottery, and all operational, logistical, and security responsibilities rest with the Government, which bears the entire duty to ensure democratic participation is possible.

A.3. Poll Accessibility

No barriers to the poll, such as, but not limited to, poll taxes, ancestral eligibility requirements, and requirements that do not account for disability, may be required at the polling place.

A.4. Absentee and Early Voting

The government must make provisions for absentee voting and must allow at least seven days of early voting at designated polls open for a minimum of twelve hours each day.

A.5. Governmental Burden

The convenience of government workers, the cost of administration, or historical practice shall never be used as a justification to limit access to the vote. Any rule or policy that has the foreseeable effect of burdening the exercise of this Power, especially by communities of interest frequently excluded in the past, shall be presumed invalid under this Charter.

A.6. Elections for Federal Office

Federal elections shall use ranked-choice voting through instant runoff. Voters may rank as many candidates as they choose. A ballot shall not be invalidated for leaving some rankings blank, and each valid vote shall count as far as it can be transferred.

a. Instant Runoff

In any contest where no candidate receives a majority of first-choice votes, the candidate with the fewest votes shall be eliminated, and those ballots shall be transferred to the next available ranked choice. This process shall repeat until one candidate secures a majority.

A.7. Procedures for Close Margins

If a tie or resulting margin within 1% of the total votes cast occurs that prevents the determination of a winner, the Federal Elections Commission shall conduct a single, transparent, and publicly auditable recount. If a tie remains after the recount, the winner shall be determined by lot. In such a case, each tied candidate shall draw a number from one to one hundred, and the candidate with the highest number shall be declared the winner. Referenda shall have no tie-breaker, and the referendum is ruled unresolved.

A.8. Open Choice

No election for public office shall permit the use of primaries, caucuses, nominating contests, or similar mechanisms to limit who may appear on the ballot. All eligible candidates shall qualify independently, as provided by this Charter.

A.9. Campaign Season

Candidates may begin gathering petition signatures or fulfilling other ballot qualification requirements at any time allowed by law. However, once a Person declares their candidacy for federal office, they may not engage in public campaigning—including advertising, fundraising, or speech about the election—until the ninety (90) days before the election begin. During that period, candidates may speak about their own values, beliefs, and policies, but may not make materially false claims about themselves or other candidates for the purpose of misinforming voters.

Beginning one hundred eighty (180) days before a federal election, any other Person or group may engage in public advocacy related to the election. They may support or oppose specific policies, values, or ideas. They may also publicly endorse a candidate.

B. Balloting Integrity and Verification Process

All votes shall be cast on physical, voter‑marked ballots at an official polling location or by authorized paper absentee ballot. Remote or online voting is prohibited.

Each ballot shall be scanned by a machine that verifies whether the ballot has been completed in a way that allows accurate tallying. If the ballot contains errors—such as invalid markings, overvoting, or unmarked races—the machine shall notify the voter and offer the opportunity to correct the ballot or spoil and replace it.

Once verified and accepted, the original physical ballot shall be deposited into a secure, tamper‑resistant container to serve as the legal and auditable record of the vote. No vote shall be considered valid or official unless its physical ballot is retained and secured in this manner.

Each ballot shall be assigned a unique, non‑personally‑identifiable tracking code. This code shall be recorded by the scanning machine and included in the electronic record. During any audit or recount, election officials must be able to verify that each physical ballot corresponds exactly to its recorded digital interpretation, ensuring full traceability without compromising ballot secrecy.

All software used to scan, tally, or report votes shall be fully open‑source and publicly available for inspection no later than one hundred eighty (180) days before any election in which it is used. The Federal Elections Commission shall maintain a reference implementation meeting this requirement. Private vendors may supply hardware or software only if every line of code they deploy is equally open‑source and subject to public scrutiny.

A full public hand recount shall be conducted automatically when the margin of victory is less than one percent (< 1%) of the total votes cast, or when a statutorily defined challenge is filed within seventy‑two (72) hours of preliminary results. After every election, a random sample of ballots shall be hand‑counted to verify machine accuracy; if discrepancies exceed the statutory tolerance, the hand count shall expand until resolved.

After every election, at least two percent (2%) of precincts in each county, rounded up to the next whole precinct and selected at random, shall be hand‑counted to verify machine accuracy; if discrepancies exceed the statutory tolerance, the hand count shall expand until resolved. Absentee ballots shall be accepted upon receipt in their official return envelope bearing a unique, non‑personally‑identifiable tracking code issued by election officials. No additional verification or cure process shall be required, and a ballot may be rejected only upon documented evidence that its tracking code has been previously used or that the envelope shows clear signs of tampering.

C. Assisted Voting Guarantee

Any voter who requires assistance to mark or cast a ballot may do so with a person of their choosing, or, if unavailable, with a sworn election worker, provided that the assistant acts solely at the voter’s direction and maintains the secrecy of the ballot.

The government also bears the burden of ensuring any Citizen who has the Civic Power to vote be given reasonable accommodation to do so if disability would otherwise make the exercise of that Power inaccessible to them.

D. Referenda

The Citizens shall have the Power to vote on some issues directly, as defined in this Charter. Except where otherwise noted in this Charter, referenda shall be held on the customary day of the national election.

E. Federal Elections Commission

There shall be a Federal Elections Commission, which is a permanent, independent office within the Judicial Branch of the United States. The Commission shall be responsible for overseeing and enforcing the provisions of this Charter related to the timing, conduct, financing, speech, and integrity of federal elections.

E.1. Voluntary Neutrality

All employees of the Federal Elections Commission, including the Director, must be Citizens of the United States. As a condition of employment, they shall voluntarily relinquish their Civic Right to vote beginning upon the date of their appointment and lasting until one election cycle after the conclusion of their employment.

E.2. Leadership and Compensation

The Director of the Federal Elections Commission shall serve a single, non-renewable term of six (6) years. The Director shall be compensated at the same rate as an Associate Justice of the Supreme Court. All other employees shall be compensated within a range set by Congress, between the 50th and 88th percentiles of national individual income, as measured in the most recent decennial census.

E.3. Duties and Powers

The Federal Elections Commission shall have the power to investigate possible violations of this Charter related to federal elections, to conduct formal audits of federal election procedures and results, and to initiate or refer legal proceedings for enforcement. It shall also manage the Civic Draft process used to staff federal election polling locations.

a. Oversight

Whenever a State election occurs concurrently with a federal election, the Federal Elections Commission shall oversee the combined administration. In such cases, all election workers shall be drawn from the Civic Draft, and all costs related to the administration of that election shall be paid in full by the Federal Government through the Commission. States may enact and enforce rules governing their own elections, but those rules must not conflict with the provisions of this Charter or hinder the integrity or conduct of the federal election in any way.

b. Statute Enforcement

The Federal Elections Commission shall also be responsible for enforcing all federal statutes related to the conduct, integrity, financing, and regulation of elections, provided such statutes are consistent with this Charter. The Federal Elections Commission shall have full investigative authority to enforce election law, but may compel testimony or documents only upon judicial warrant based on probable cause, describing with particularity the violation being investigated.

F. Standing to Charge

F.1. General Provisions

Any declared candidate for federal office shall have standing to bring a civil action in a Federal District Court against one or more other candidates for violations of this Charter or of federal election law, provided the alleged violation is material and occurred during the same election cycle. Other individuals or groups may have standing as provided for in Article IV.

A violation is material if it could reasonably affect the outcome of the election or the fair exercise of Civic powers by voters or other candidates. The court shall determine materiality based on the totality of circumstances, including the timing, scale, and nature of the violation.

F.2. Procedure

Claims must be brought within thirty (30) days of discovery of the violation, but no later than seven (7) days before the election unless the violation occurred within that period.

Appeals of election-related rulings must be heard and decided within seventy-two (72) hours of filing.

F.3. Relief

If the court finds by clear and convincing evidence that a material violation occurred, it may issue appropriate relief, including but not limited to injunctive orders, public findings of misconduct, monetary penalties as authorized by law, disqualification of the offending candidate, or nullification of the election result, consistent with this Charter.

Any such nullification shall be limited to the race in which the violation occurred and shall not affect unrelated contests on the same ballot.

F.4. Penalties for Frivolous Claims

A candidate who brings a knowingly false or frivolous claim shall be deemed to have violated their Civic Duty under this Charter, and may be subject to penalties including censure or disqualification.