Election Mechanics
Elections in A House Divided run perpetually. Every office has continuous cycles: a cycle resolves, the next one spawns immediately, seats never sit vacant. This page is the top-level reference for how elections work — phases, timing, scoring, vote math. Deep dives for primaries, generals, and country-specific rules get their own pages.
The Two Phases
Every election has two phases:
- Primary phase — intra-party competition. Candidates from the same party compete for one nomination slot. Resolution uses a primary score (no votes accumulate). Highest score per party advances.
- General phase — inter-party competition. Nominees from different parties compete. Votes accumulate turn by turn; the final 4 turns land 25% of the pool.
When the general resolves, winners take office and the next cycle spawns.
Duration by Race Type (US)
All durations are in real hours = game weeks.
| Office | Total | Primary | General |
|---|---|---|---|
| House | 96h (2 game years) | 24h | 72h |
| Senate | 288h (6 game years) | 48h | 240h |
| Governor | 192h (4 game years) | 48h | 144h |
| State Senate | 192h (4 game years) | 48h | 144h |
| President | 192h (4 game years) | 48h | 144h |
Senate classes are staggered: Class 1 → Class 2 (+96h) → Class 3 (+192h), so one-third of the Senate is up every ~4 real days.
UK, DE, and JP use different cycle lengths — see each country hub for specifics.
The Primary Score (State Races)
Primary scores go up to 100 points in three buckets:
| Bucket | Range | Formula |
|---|---|---|
| Policy alignment | 0–40 | `max(0, 40 − ( |
| Favorability | 0–35 | (favorability / 100) × 35 |
| Influence | 0–25 | normalizeNPI(politicalInfluence) × 25 |
Manhattan distance on the two-axis grid (econ + social) drives alignment. Each point of distance costs you 2 alignment points.
NPP candidates get a 50% primary-score multiplier when at least one player is in the same party's primary — a 50-point NPP lands at 25, which makes competent player candidates heavy favorites.
The Primary Score (Presidential)
Presidential primaries use a different blend — national reach and party infrastructure matter more than state favorability:
| Bucket | Range | Formula |
|---|---|---|
| Policy alignment | 0–40 | same as state formula |
| Party organization | 0–25 | (stateOrg / 100) × 25 (candidate's home state party org) |
| National influence | 0–25 | normalizeNationalReachPresidentialPrimary(NPI) × 25 |
| Favorability | 0–10 | (favorability / 100) × 10 |
So presidential primaries reward NPI accumulation and home-state party-org investment, where state primaries reward favorability and in-state political influence.
Vote Accumulation (General)
During the general phase, votes accumulate each turn via the Total Appeal Pipeline (also used by polling and NPP dropout calculations).
Per-turn weighting
- Early turns:
0.75 × totalPool / (totalTurns − 4)per turn. - Final 4 turns:
0.25 × totalPool / 4per turn.
In other words, the last 4 turns are worth ~25% of the entire election. If you're within 3% going into the last day, every campaign and ad action in those 4 turns compounds into the heaviest-weighted snapshots.
The Total Appeal Pipeline
For each demographic group, for each candidate, per turn:
- Reach —
normalizeNPI(influence). State races use Political Influence (caps at 1.0 when PI=100). Presidential races use NPI (logarithmic, can exceed 1.0). - Appeal (per group) —
(50 − |econDiff|×5 − |socialDiff|×5)² / 100 + normalizeNPI(influence) × 25. Quadratic position scoring. Max 50 at standard NPI=100; up to 75 with very high NPI in presidential races. - Approval scalar —
favorability / 100. 0% favorability = 0 votes. - Party org scalar —
0.5 + (statePartyOrg / 100) × 0.5. Ranges 0.5× to 1.0×. Independents use 1.0. - Turn pool scaled by party strength modifier:
(1 + stateGovernmentApproval) × officeStrength. - Group-level allocation — Each group contributes to the turn pool proportional to its size. Within each group, candidates split that contribution by relative
(appeal × reach × approval × partyOrg). - Votes summed across all groups. That's your turn total.
Office strength multipliers:
- Governor: 1.0
- State Senate: 0.85
- House: 0.9
- Senate: 0.8
Governor races are most affected by state government approval; Senate races least.
FPTP vs RCV — The Spoiler Effect
Most states use First Past the Post (FPTP). A few run Ranked Choice Voting (RCV) — this is a state-level legislative choice.
In FPTP states, after the per-turn group allocation:
- For each third-party candidate,
10% × (their group-level votes)is drawn from the ideologically nearest major-party candidate and transferred to the third party. - "Nearest" = Manhattan distance on the econ/social grid.
- Major parties are determined per region: Democrat/Republican in the US, Labour/Conservative in England, SNP/Labour in Scotland, etc.
This models real-world spoiler dynamics: a Green candidate bleeds Democratic votes, potentially handing the seat to the Republican.
In RCV states, no spoiler adjustment applies. Third parties compete on equal footing. Switching a state from FPTP to RCV requires legislation.
Multi-Seat Races
House and State Senate (US), Bundestag constituency seats, UK Commons regions, and JP Shūgiin use proportional allocation:
- Largest-remainder method distributes seats proportional to vote share.
- Minimum threshold: 20% of votes to be eligible for any seat (
MULTI_SEAT_MIN_SHARE). - 2-seat special case: winner takes both unless the runner-up reaches 20%.
- Seats estimate: updated each turn —
voteFraction × totalSeats.
Candidacy Rules
- One race at a time. Active candidacies block new declarations (cancel first, then re-enter).
- Home state / region only. US home state, UK home region, DE home Land, JP home prefecture — except President, which is national.
- Party required for primaries. Independents run in the "independent" party primary (same rules as any other party). No general-phase bypass.
- Country restriction. Your
countryIdmust match the election'scountryId; cross-country entry returns 403. - Primary deadline. Declarations close at
primaryEndTime. Miss the window and you wait a full cycle.
Withdrawal
You can withdraw any time before the election resolves:
- Candidate status →
withdrawn,withdrawnAttimestamped. - Your votes are permanently removed from the tally (not redistributed).
- Your campaign document is deleted.
- You cannot re-enter the same election.
Withdrawal during a general you're losing is sometimes strategic — it frees actions for a better race next cycle. During a primary it's almost always wrong unless you're pivoting to a different office.
Perpetual Continuity
No seat sits vacant. Mechanics:
- House: Next cycle spawned immediately on resolution.
- Senate / Governor / State Senate: Perpetual check each turn; replacement spawned for any slot with no active/upcoming race.
- Governor bootstrap: If no state has ever completed a governor race, one is spawned per state so cycle 1 exists.
- President: Spawned on presidential election years (
isPresidentialElectionYear(turn)). - New elections inherit duration from the most recently completed equivalent race.
Presidential Election Specifics
- National race. Any home state can run.
- Electoral College (538 votes, 270 to win). ME and NE split by congressional district (
UNIT_LEANmodifiers). - Independent penalty: 0.3× vote share on the general path (70% reduction).
- Running mate (VP): After the primary, each nominee picks a VP. Cannot be the current President; cannot be the same person.
- Presidential Travel: Active candidates can travel to a US state during the general (5 actions). +1% Favorability per turn while in-state, one state at a time.
- Tie-breaker: 269–269 resolved by deterministic coin flip (hash of election ID + candidate IDs).
Polls vs Simulated Votes
- State races (House, Senate, Gov, State Senate, Commons, Bundestag, Sangiin, Shūgiin): player polls use the same group-level competitive allocation and FPTP spoiler rules as real vote accumulation. Poll numbers reflect the actual math.
- Presidential: simulated votes accumulate per electoral unit using a different model (party-weighted positions, steep party-org curve, state-lean, swing-state ground game, FPTP spoiler not applied). Player polls remain home-state projections only and should not be treated as Electoral College forecasts.
Related
- Primaries — Declaration rules, NPP dynamics, primary-phase tactics.
- General Elections — Vote accumulation, final-turn weighting, tie-breakers.
- Campaign Strategy — Tactical decision-making.
- Primary vs General Tactics — How to pivot between phases.
- Demographics & Targeting — Appeal math and group composition.
- Snap Elections — Parliamentary dissolution in UK and JP.
- Formula Deep-Dive — Every formula with derivations.