July 2018 General Election

July 2018 General Election

← October 2017 General Election	15 Jun 2018 - 1 Jul 2018
All 200 seats in the Cosa 101 seats needed for a majority
Eligible voters		182
Leader	Ian Plätschisch	Cresti M. Siervicül	Miestrâ A. Schivâ
Party	MRPT	RUMP	FreeDem
Leader since	8 Jun 2018	May 2018?	May 2017
Leader's seat	Senator (MM)	Senator (MA)	MC (FreeDem)
Last election	83	58	48
Leader	Mximo Carbonel
Party	MTGA
Leader's seat	MC (REP)
Last election	4
Senate seats up for reelection
Outgoing Seneschal
Lüc da Schir MRPT

The July 2018 General Election is to be held from 15 June 2018/XXXIX to 1 July 2018/XXXIX and will elect members to the 52nd Cosa and fill six Senate seats for Benito, Cézembre, Fiovă, Maricopa, Maritiimi-Maxhestic and Vuode.

Elections to the provincial assemblies of Atatürk, Benito, Cézembre and Florencia will also be conducted. No referenda to ratify amendments to the Organic Law will be conducted. The election will be the first to be administered by the newly appointed Secretary of State Glüc da Dhi.

Registered parties

Four national political parties are registered for the election:

Party		Beliefs
	Free Democrats of Talossa	Progressivism, liberalism, republicanism
	Moderate Radical Party of Talossa (MRPT)	Centrism, constitutional monarchy, liberalism
	RUMP	Monarchism, conservativism, derivativism
	Make Talossa Great Again (MTGA)	Populism, republicanism

In respect to the previous elections, The Republican Party (REP) has been rebranded into the Make Talossa Great Again (MTGA) party, with no mentions of republicanism in the party's 50 words statement. The HAT, a mostly apolitical party who contested the elections to the 51st Cosa but subsequently faded out during the term by losing its only MC, has not registered again. This means that, like in the 50th Cosa elections, only four parties will appear on the ballot; if no write-in parties will be returned, this will mark a more-than-six-years low in the number of parties represented in the Cosa.

The Moderate Radicals need to gain 18 seats for a majority, the Free Democrats need 53, and the RUMP need 43. No party has won an outright majority since June 2012, although the RUMP came close in the two subsequent elections.

Senatorial races

Alongside the election of the 52nd Cosa, a record six Senate seats will be up for reelection. They are:

• Benito, for a full 3-Cosa term
• Cézembre, for the 2-Cosa remainder of Glüc da Dhi's term
• Fiovă, for a full 2-Cosa term
• Maricopa, for the 2-Cosa remainder of Beneditsch Ardpresteir's term
• Maritiimi-Maxhestic, for a full 3-Cosa term
• Vuode, for the 1-Cosa remainder of Eovart Grischun's term

Of those, only the Cézembrean seat is open, and only the Benitian and Vuodean races are contested.

Benito

Two-term Senator Lüc da Schir is seeking reelection to his seat, after stepping down from the leadership of the MRPT and announcing he would not serve in any Cabinet position, whatever the outcome of the general election. He is being challenged by Eiric Börnatfiglheu, a Free Democrat returning to political activity after a court-imposed hiatus following the ESB Affair. In pre-electoral talks, Börnatfiglheu has said he deeply regretted his role in the affair, and "in the interest of not mincing words", he freely admitted to having committed a crime. Da Schir also received some amount of renewed criticism regarding his role in the passage of the Catchment Area Reform Act, which was strongly opposed by Ohio Benitians who found themselves in Vuode's catchment area, including Börnatfiglheu himself and da Schir's previous opponent Iason Taiwos.

Benito Senate Election
	Lüc da Schir	incumbent
	Eiric Börnatfiglheu

Vuode

In what is expected to be the closest race of the cycle, incumbent Trotxâ Betiñéir is seeking to be elected for a first term in his own right, after already serving twelve Clarks as a backup appointee in three separate stints. He recently sought to be elected to the seat in the 50th Cosa, when he stepped back during the election in favour of Éovart Grischun, and in the 47th Cosa, when he was unseated by the same Grischun, then of the Progressive Party - as part of a wider reversal of fortune for RUMP Senators, following the so-called Fortress Senate term, which led to Betiñéir, Brad Holmes of Atatürk and Mick Preston of M-M losing their seats in the span of two election cycles.

Opposing him is former Senator Viteu Marcianüs of the Free Democrats, seeking to regain the seat he held for two terms in 2009-2013. He already sought to capture the seat in the 50th Cosa General Elections, losing to Éovart Grischun in a race that also briefly featured his current opponent.

The winner will only serve for one Cosa, as this is a special election for the remainder of Éovart Grischun's term; due to the small demographics of Vuode and both candidates being relatively far from the ideological center, the race is expected to come down to the last vote.

Vuode Special Senate Election
	Trotxâ Betiñéir	incumbent
	Viteu Marcianüs

Part time handicapper Lüc da Schir mentioned in the Talossan Chatzy chatroom that early on in the race his projections showed Marcianüs was sligtly more favored to win, but there was a big chance of the candidates tying. This would extraordinarily give notable weight to IRV/RCV second preferences, normally not important in two-candidate races, and make it so that the final outcome could be determined by whichever voter would fill (or forget to fill) the 2nd-5th lines on the Senate ballot.

Cézembre

The Cézembrean race is made necessary by Senator Glüc da Dhi, who was serving a third term as Senator, resigning to accept an appointment as Secretary of State. This thus marks the third Cézembrean Senate election in four election cycles, although the central one was not contested due to the absence of candidates other than da Dhi.

Former PP Senator and current MRPT Sénéchal Alèxandreu Soleighlfred is the only candidate; however the race will nevertheless be disputed, as it will be conducted by the National Chancery rather than under Cézembrean law.

Cézembre Special Senate Election
	Alèxandreu Soleighlfred	unopposed

Fiovă

Mençei dal Senäts Gödafrïeu Válcadác'h is running for a second term; no opponent has declared to be running against him. No Fiovăn race has been contested since the 46th Cosa General Elections, a contest that was criticised for the failure of the provincial Secretary of State to duly inform the voters about the contest.

Fiovă Senate Election
	Gödafrïeu Válcadác'h	unopposed

Maricopa

In Maricopa, the first election conducted with Instant Runoff Vote saw RUMP candidate Justice Béneditsch Ardpresteir winning against Moderate Radical Txoteu Davinescu. The open seat was vacated by Munditenens Tresplet's decision to run for the Cosa instead.

Maricopa Special Senate Election
	Cresti M. Siervicül	unopposed

Maritiimi-Maxhestic

The most recent member of the Senate, Ian Plätschisch, is running for a first term of his own, after being appointed to complete the lone Clark left in Magniloqueu da Lhiun's term. He previously sat in the Cosa as the leader of the Moderate Radical caucus, the Party Whip. No opponent has declared, and the election will be conducted by the Maritiimi-Maxhestic government by public ballot.

Maritiimi-Maxhestic Senate Election
	Ian Plätschisch	unopposed

Predictions and exit polling

Lüc da Schir's exit poll for the 52nd Cosa elections

Average of Witt predictions

Party		Avg seats
	Moderate Radicals	75
	Free Democrats	60
	RUMP	56
	MTGA	9

Prior to the vote, a customary round of predictions took place on Wittenberg; apart for a few outliers, all showed the MRPT poised to reconfirm its plurality but with a reduced lead over the other parties; and a strong showing by the FreeDems, with strong hints that they would overtake the RUMP into second place.

Lüc da Schir shared his traditional exit poll half an hour before the polls closed. He observed how, thanks to robust get out the vote efforts and better campaigning, the Free Democrats were the "moral winners" of the elections, with a big chance of having surpassed the RUMP into second place. This, however, would not be enough to snatch first place from the Moderate Radicals, as they could count on a high number of voters from outside the party in the previous General Elections such that, even if they failed to turn out a substantial proportion of them, they would only lose ten votes or so, enough for a high chance at a reduced plurality. The RUMP was also described as being on damage control, after rumours about party members being unsure whether to enter the party at all and virtually no campaigning; however, they ultimately still had a chance at retaining their second place finish thanks to the usual last burst of votes.

Results

Preliminary results for the Cosa were published upon the polls closing at 7:30 PM TST on July 1st, with unofficial results for the five Senate races conducted by the Chancery published soon after.

Cosa

Preliminary results show the Moderate Radicals retaining a reduced plurality with 40 votes (68 seats) ahead of the Free Democrats with 36 votes (61 seats), the RUMP with 35 votes (60 seats), the MTGA with 4 votes (7 seats) and two write in votes totalling 4 seats combined.

Senate

Preliminary results indicate that all of the incumbents, plus the lone candidate to the open seat in Cézembre, have won their races. In particular, Lüc da Schir appeared to have retained his seat with a larger than expected 15-5 majority, and Trotxâ Betiñéir was in a commanding 5-2 lead in another race that was expected to be very close before the elections.

All of the uncontested candidates appear to have won a comfortable win, save for the Maricopan race where Cresti Siervicül surprisingly failed to be elected at the first turn of IRV/RCV counting - a possible sign of the RUMP losing its previous overall majority of Maricopan votes, which was predicted by Lüc da Schir's exit poll.

Provinces

Final results for provincial assemblies will be compiled by the respective provincial officers rather than the Chancery and therefore they will potentially be delayed. However, preliminary results showed:

• A Free Democrat plurality in Atatürk, by 5 votes to the RUMP's 4 and the MRPT's 3. The House of Commons did not assemble in the last two Cosas, which would have had respectively given a MRPT plurality of half the total seats, and a FreeDem-RUMP tied plurality. This therefore marks the gain of a lone plurality by the Free Democrats.
• A Moderate Radical majority in Benito, with 7 votes to the NPW's 2, the FreeDems, RUMP and "Iason Taiwos"'s 1. The MRPT retains an overall majority for the third term in a row.
• A Moderate Radical majority in Cézembre, with 6 votes to the FreeDems's 3 and the RUMP's 2. This translates in the MRPT taking majority control of L'Etats for the first time, despite repeated pluralities along the line, and despite the provinces being projected to have been narrowly carried by the FreeDems nationally.
• In Florencia, the RUMP surprisingly did not manage to get an overall majority of the provincial assembly vote, but it will receive a majority of seats in the Nimlet, as its electoral law mandates for two seats to be reserved to the Governor and the Senator, both members of the RUMP.

For the provincial assemblies that are based on claims to seats:

• In M-M, the three claims received will seemingly translate to all seats being filled by MRPT members, which therefore continues the majority control of the Assembly for a fourth consecutive convocation.
• In Vuode, the Free Democrats will control the States General with two seats, with one occupied by the RUMP. The last time the States General assembled, the RUMP had a 2-1 majority, which means that the Free Democrats have effectively flipped the province despite the RUMP being projected to have won a plurality of Cosa votes in Vuode.