Polls are open. Two ballots are being run at once — the senatorial election and a referendum on three constitutional amendments — and voting closes twenty-four hours after opening.
The senatorial ballot: 173rd Senatorial Election.
The referendum: Referendum: Three Constitutional Amendments.
Constitutional amendments require a two-thirds majority. All three questions are set out below, in the order they appear.
One: the Deputy Speaker Switcharoo Act
The shortest of the three, and a single change. Article 2 §5 of the Constitution would be amended to read:
The Speaker of the Senate shall appoint any Senator to serve as Deputy Speaker of the Senate immediately after the election of the Speaker, and may replace the Deputy Speaker with another Senator at any time during the Senate term.
Two things follow from it. The Deputy Speaker is appointed by the Speaker rather than chosen by anyone else, and the appointment is revocable at will for the length of the term. Whoever holds the office holds it at the Speaker’s pleasure.
Two: the Unified Jurisdiction Act 2026
brandmal’s amendment is the longest question on the ballot and the one with the widest reach. Its preamble states two aims: that criminal jurisdiction “should be clearly defined,” and that “people must not surrender their entire privacy merely to participate in SimDem.”
It amends Article 10 §1 of the Constitution so that the Inferior Courts hold original and appellate jurisdiction over all cases not originating solely within a colony, “as prescribed by law which must guarantee an effective moderation system.”
It then rewrites Article 1 of the Criminal Code 2020 to set out when a person may be prosecuted at all. Prosecution would be available where the crime was committed in any territory; for a listed set of offences wherever they occur — doxxing, crimes against child safety, sexual harassment, first degree harassment, terrorist conspiracy, crimes against the democratic order, and anything a relevant terms of service expects SimDemocracy to punish; and where the accused was representing SimDemocracy or acting on its behalf as an elected official.
The contested part is what it does with private conversations. DMs, group chats and other servers would fall within jurisdiction where every participant is a citizen, or where everyone else consented — servers and group chats being able to consent by democratic decision — or where the main purpose of the place is discussing SimDemocracy.
Against that it sets a carve-out: none of it applies where it is reasonable to assume the participants did not want what was said there to fall under SimDemocracy’s jurisdiction. That carve-out is itself disapplied for any venue where official business is conducted.
Three smaller provisions carry weight. A “person” is defined as a natural human being and their associated accounts, which brings alts within a single prosecution. No rules of evidence may be derived from the Article. And the Criminal Code changes are written to take effect whether or not the constitutional amendment in Article 1 passes — the two halves stand or fall separately.
One clause is worth reading twice. In defining where a crime is committed, the Act includes “where the crime would have occurred in the mind of the accused person in the case of an attempted or otherwise planned crime.”
Three: the Border Wall Location Adjustment Act
The third question is the one this paper has already reported in detail. It would cap any activation of the Apply to Join feature at forty-eight hours, permit it only on “clear and convincing present or impending danger, subject to judicial review,” and rebuild the border system around a defined Port of Entry with a seven-day deadline on deciding applications. It amends Article 13 §3 of the Constitution so that presence in a Core Territory does not make a person a citizen while they are held at the Port of Entry, and it entrenches itself at five-sixths of the Senate.
Its text passed the Senate unanimously as SB28 and was signed by the President at 11:29am on 31 July. It does not take effect on that signature. Because it amends the Constitution, this ballot is what decides it.
Two of the three misnumber their own sections
The Border Wall Location Adjustment Act sets out two different sections numbered §3 in its proposed Article 3 — the Apply to Join power, and a separate power to let Immigrating Persons bypass the border channel. Nothing in the text distinguishes them.
The Unified Jurisdiction Act does the same thing twice over at §1.4.5: one provision says venues used for official business cannot rely on the privacy carve-out, and a second, identically numbered, tells the Court to decide jurisdiction at pretrial where consent is required but nobody is able to give it.
Neither is a drafting quibble on a document that becomes constitutional text if it passes. Both are on the ballot as written.
Log your vote
The verification button is back. Press it after voting and the Registry Commission records that you took part, which is how the Commission confirms that only you are using your SUIT. Voters who do not press it may be asked to verify by direct message instead.
The button had been withdrawn at some earlier point and was restored, in the Electoral Commissioner’s words, “by popular demand.”
On the senatorial ballot, the Commissioner’s guidance carried one instruction for readers of the candidate statements: “watch for the two candidates who never replaced their placeholder statements.”