As I have mentioned in previous updates in April and January the workload of the Governor-General has grown beyond the capacity of a single person. A prime example of this is events, which I was never able to do on my own. The creation of the Events Team has allowed events to resume. I believe it is now time for elections and moderation to be separated in a similar fashion. Accordingly I have written an amendment which will separate the job of the Governor-General into two positions. In this post I will explain each of the decisions that have been made to separate the myriad roles currently held by the Governor-General.

The amendment I have written creates a new position; the Chief Electoral Officer. The Chief Electoral Officer would be in charge of the Electoral Commission (just like the irl EC) and therefore would take the role the Governor-General currently has in the electoral commission. This requires very little modification of the constitution, since control of elections is already held by the Electoral Commission.

The roles of the Governor-General are then divided between the new head mod-GG and the electoral commission.

• The running of elections is the job of the Electoral Commission, with the Chief Electoral Officer at its head. Accordingly all election related jobs are given to the EC, like determining electorates (though the size of parliament and number of electorates are to be determined in tandem with the Community Commission, to allow community input), running candidate submission, making polls, running elections.
• The registration of parties will be operated by the Electoral Commission, but since parties are also a meta issue to some extent, the Governor-General will have final say over the registration and deregistration of parties.
• All the canon roles of the Governor-General, like royal assents, the speech from the throne, honours, dissolution of parliament, will be held by the Governor-General.
• All the clerical roles of the Governor-General, such as maintaining the constitution, spreadsheets and technically being charge of the wiki (although of course, AMN will always be functionally in charge of the wiki), running votes of confidence and the like, will be held by the Governor-General
• Finally the moderation roles of the Governor-General will be held by the Governor-General.

There are also a few peripheral changes in this amendment. It modifies the process for electing the Governor-General. Where previously an outgoing GG could nominate a candidate who would have precedence over any other candidate, this amendment creates a process similar to the one we use for the Speaker, where multiple candidates are reduced to one with an election before the final candidate goes to a vote of confidence. This amendment lowers the threshold required from three-quarters to two-thirds. One of the reasons this was so high was because of the concentration of power. A two-thirds majority is a more achievable threshold and more appropriate for a position with less overall power. This process is mirrored for the Chief Electoral Officer.

Another change is a small adjustment to the Community Commission. The Community Commission has always been about bridging the gap between the community and meta positions. When its predecessor was designed, the only two meta positions we had were the Governor-General and Speaker, and so both were put on the committee, with elected community members holding the majority. Now more than a year later, the number of meta positions has increased - it's now entirely likely for there to be up to a dozen between the speakership, events team, electoral commission and moderation. Their representation on the CC needs a rethink. Since it is infeasible for a representative from each, we've come up with a system of selected a single person from the meta bodies. The Governor-General will have the only ex officio position on the CC (due to their role running meta votes and maintaining the constitution), while the seat currently held by the speaker will become this meta rep position. This single representative will be selected just like the three elected members and will be limited to non-consecutive terms. This way all parts of the simulation may be represented on the CC and community representatives will retain the majority.

Since this would be a highly consequential amendment, I want to start a discussion in the community before this amendment enters the formal process. So please discuss this in the comments. I may create a feedback form if that's something people are interested in.