New Citizen Education: Political Mechanics

Day 1,148, 16:39 Published in USA USA by Department of Citizen Affairs

Have you ever been befuddled by the way congress elections work in different countries? Befuddled when someone tells you to vote for a certain person because of a PTO? Well, you can stop your befuddlement, my friend, because not only is that a weird word, but this article will tell you all you need to know.

Congress

Congressional elections are done every month on the 25th. The USA is blessed (or cursed, depending on how you look at it) with a giant amount of regions, which makes our elections a pretty straightforward process: 1 congressman per region, as long as we hold over 40 regions. All of the top 5 parties can run a candidate in every region we own.

Congress is a group of people elected in all of the regions across a country that manage the political and economic landscape of a country. Congress' day to day duties mainly involve renewing MPPs with allies and managing the budget to certain departments of the Executive Branch.

Congress members can also approve citizenship requests. Citizenship requests are checked out and cleared by several intelligence agencies, and then Congress members organize to accept those that are cleared. Citizenship’s purpose is expounded on in another section below.

Presidency

The President of the United States (also known as PotUS for short, or Country President as a generic term) is one official we elect on the 5th of every month. The President can vote on resolutions just like congresspeople, along with proposing special laws explained below. The President is charged with interacting with other countries, starting wars, proposing alliances, and attacking regions.



The President is also in charge of creating and managing a diverse and intelligent cabinet of Secretaries and Advisors, as well as stepping up as a figurehead when things go horribly wrong or delightfully right.

Laws

Laws are bills that Congress and the President pass to change pressing matters in the country.

Each congressman gets 2 proposals per term, these are the laws Congress can propose:

- Citizen Fee
The citizen fee is an amount of money taken from the country accounts and given to new players.

- Donate
Congress can donate money or gold to organizations. 99% of Congress donations are sent to the Congressional Budget Office, and you should always verify that it's a legitimate donation on the forum.

- Impeachment
Congress can remove the President from his office with a 66% majority vote (instead of the normal 50😵. When a President is impeached, the runner up in the president election is moved up to President. Impeachments should always be heavily debated before hand.

- Issue Money
Issuing money is essentially turning gold into USD in the company accounts. Like country donations, it should be verified on the forum’s Congress section before voting yes or no.

- Tax Adjustments
Congress can modify the income taxes, import taxes, and value added tax on any industry in their country. Taxes are often heavily debated in Congress on the forums.

- Minimum wage
Congress can lower or raise a minimum wage that company managers must pay their employees.



The President can also propose some law types (with unlimited proposals to boot), which Congress votes on as well:

- Constructions
Country presidents can move to put a hospital or a defense system in any region under their control. Our government produces and sells its own constructions, so don't ever buy a company in those industries.

- Country Relations
Presidents are in charge of starting alliances (MPPs), declaring war (allowing a country to directly attack another) and natural enemies, requesting peace treaties to end war, and signing trade embargoes (disallowing imports from and to another country).

- New Citizen Message
Players get the NCM in their inbox as soon as they register in eRepublik. The president can write his own personal message to greet new players into the country.

Citizenship

Citizenship is a mechanic that allows you to partake in a country's political process by voting or running for office. Your citizenship starts in what country you sign up for, but you can change it by moving to a different country and applying for citizenship there. A congressman of that country can accept your citizenship request, and you will be able to participate in politics there, but no longer in your home country.

Each congressman in the U.S. is limited to a handful of citizenship grants, and our request list is always filled with seekers of the American dream (and evil Serbs trying to wreck it). Citizenship requests cannot be "denied", they can only expire after a few days. After that, you can reapply if you think you were accidentally overlooked.

PTOs and ATOs

PTOs or Political Takeovers are organized efforts by countries to get citizenship (?) in an enemy country and take over their political process.


I just vant to be yoor President, vat big deal?

A PTO usually starts slow, one or two enemy citizens slip into Congress and grant citizenship to more enemies, eventually taking over a party or populating their own, and then running presidential and congressional candidates from the puppet party, hoping to forcefully take the elections. If they succeed, they can easily shut down a country's war machine by refusing all MPPs, destroy the economy by raising taxes, and stealing from the citizenry by donating the money to offshore accounts.

The process can be sped up by "wiping" - or completely occuping another country through invasion - before congress elections, which causes the country to have no congress and all citizenships automatically accepted.

This is a prominent practice of our enemies, and many small countries on our side are often subject to it. That is why we launch ATO - or anti-takeover - operations from Federal Election Commission (FEC) to help these smaller countries with volunteers that are willing to sacrifice their home voting privileges to save an ally’s. A country with a low population that is threatened or already PTOed can often be helped quickly by a surge of ATO voters to keep real elected officials in.

An ATO has 3 objectives: keep enemies out of the president’s seat, run blockers and vote for unity candidates in congressional elections, and keep enemy parties out of the top 5 (or take them over).


Anti-takeover efforts can sometimes be just as important as battlefield tactics.

Blockers are trustworthy people who run for congress without the intention of winning. A blocker makes sure a hostile citizen cannot run in a void that a top 5 party has not filled with a candidate. 100% blocker coverage is important in all countries, including our own. When it comes time for our congressional elections, look for articles and party messages for your chance to volunteer.

Unity candidates are candidates that have their election held off-site beforehand, and then run for the position in-game to unify all domestic voters against an PTO threat. This is not something usually done except by parties, but we have been forced to do it for Presidential and Congressional elections in the past.

Only the top 5 parties, judged by membership numbers, can run candidates. It’s important that every citizen is part of a top 5 party, even casually, to make sure enemies can’t bring up their own party into the top 5 and run hostile candidates.

Links + Miscellany

Join the eUSA forums. Help sections, general discussion, congressional hearings, all the action happens here.
Join a military outfit or a militia. Free food, tickets, and company in exchange for loyal service to your country.
Join #tc on the Rizon server in IRC. You can join directly here, or learn how to set up an IRC client from our article here.
Have to fight alone? Do it right, find regions with hospitals available: http://erepublik-market.cz.cc/hospital.html

- New Citizen Assistance Form, free food and mentoring from the Department of Interior
- Message the Department of Education, give new ideas or feedback on planned topics
- Department of Defense Orders, guidance for civilians looking to contribute in a battle
- White House Press Releases, news, information, and links directly from the President's staff
- Presidential Newspaper, the current President of the United States' newspaper

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