Galactic Senators are elected community representatives that work in tandem with the Restoration III Development Team. Senators are responsible for:
Senators are not responsible for voting on or approving ideas or changes, rather they help the Development Team focus on specific items and provide feedback. General suggestions are crowdsourced through PlayerVoice, where any member of the community can share ideas for changes to the game for voting by the community, which Senators can then advocate for directly.
Senators are elected to represent groups of players by their professions. There are a total of twelve seats which represent players as follows:
Nominations open before the following senate term starts. Any player may nominate themselves or another player. All nominated players then confirm their interest to run, after which the candidates are announced.
During the campaign period, candidates have the opportunity to share a position statement with the community and run campaign activities. The Staff may coordinate specific opportunities for all candidates, but most campaigning is entirely up to the candidate themselves.
In order to vote for a senate candidate, a player must have unlocked at least the novice box of any advanced profession for the role they are voting for. For example, a player with Novice Dancer and Novice Rifleman can vote for the social senator and the ranged senator, but not for the melee senator. The space senator can only be voted on by ace pilots. The only exceptions are the GCW and PvP senators, which any player can vote for.
Everyone is limited to casting ballots once per profession per account. In other words, your account can only vote for each senate role once, regardless of what professions each character on the account qualifies to vote for. This includes the space, GCW, and PvP Senators.
Candidates may visit the voting terminal to view their vote counts, which will be updated every 24 hours during the voting week (not immediately after someone votes), but candidates may not campaign at or near the voting terminal or idle nearby.
Candidates must be elected by an absolute majority of votes, not a plurality. Meaning, a candidate must have greater than 50% of the total votes cast to be elected. In the event of a tie between two candidates where they are more than two candidates or a non-majority, a runoff election will be held to determine the winner among the two candidates with the most votes cast for them of the candidates.
If after a runoff election has occurred and no candidate has the majority, the senators that were elected by majority will vote to determine who will win the seat. In the event of a tie of the elected senators in determining the winner, the Staff will cast the tie breaking vote.
The winners will be announced after voting has closed and a special server-wide event for the inauguration of senators will take place the first day of their term.
Senate meetings and conversations with the Development Team are confidential, as is any other information that may be shared with a Senator that is not widely public knowledge. Senators who breach confidentiality will not only be violating the credence of the Senate program but also our Terms of Service and will be subject to disciplinary action.
Senators are valuable to both the development team, and the community - as such they are expected to remain active for the length of their term. Going 35 days without logging into the game or notifying their fellow senators of their absence may result in removal from office.
In general, the Development Team will not intervene in complaints about Galactic Senators unless conduct amounts to violations of these policies or our Terms of Service. The Development Team believes the appropriate recourse for players who are unhappy with their Senator is to take their frustration to the ballot box during the next voting period. Notwithstanding, the Development Team reserves the right to intervene in any conduct which could potentially harm the integrity of the senate program or project and may change the program guidelines at any time.
Senators are representatives of our community. As such, misconduct resulting in infractions or suspensions, inactivity, breaching confidentiality, or participating in any other behavior that would reflect negatively on the Restoration III project may result in dismissal from the Galactic Senate program. If a senator has been removed from or leaves office, The Development Team, in consultation with the Senate, will determine an appropriate course of action to ensure the constituents maintain their representation and senate activities are without disruption.
