2023 HHW presidential election

The **2023 HHW presidential election** will be the second HHW presidential election and is currently expected to be held some time in April 2023. A ceremonial election, the incumbent president Finolian has announced plans to run again in 2023. Numerous candidates have shown interest in running, and a few plan to do so during the primary election.

## Background

A public community vote to abolish the HHW electoral college, sponsored by Finolian, passed overwhelmingly with a final supermajority of 97.4%. As such, the 2023 election will be the first major election in HHW history to use a simple popular vote system.

### Potential issues

Early issues in the campaign included the abolition of the #news-politics channel on Discord, suicide jokes, and transparency concerns regarding the twentieth season of Hurricane Idol.

## Nominations and candidates

As of September 10, 2022, only one candidate has been formally nominated to run: incumbent President Finolian, as an independent candidate. They are the incumbent president.

### Formally nominated

#### Solaris (Liberal)

The Liberal Party nominated SolarisPenguin for President and StrawberryMaster for Vice President.

### Declared intent to run

As of September 2022, the following individuals have declared their intent to run for president.

* Havocplayz123, HHW editor (2021-present) - Civic Party
* AC5230, HHW editor (2019-2020) and New Democratic presidential candidate in 2022 - New Democratic Party
* HulkCraziness, HHW editor (2022-present) - Independent
* SolarisPenguin, HHW editor (2019-present), HHW junior administrator (2022-present), and Diet Party presidential candidate in 2022 - Liberal Party

### Publicly expressed interest

As of September 2022, the following individuals have expressed an interest in running for president.

* GloriouslyBlonde, HHW editor (2014-present), HHW bureaucrat (2014-2015), HHW rollback (2021-2022, 2022-present)

### Potential candidates

As of September 2022, the following individuals have been subjects of speculation about their potential candidacy.

* Bobnekaro, HHW editor (2015-2021), HHW bureaucrat (2016-2020)
* Nkechinyer, HHW editor (2015-2019), HHW bureaucrat (2015), HHW political activist

### Campaign suspended

* On December 18, 2022, Dynah Snowe announced the suspension of her campaign following several controversies and her subsequent departure from the community. She endorsed AC5230 for president.

## General election polling

### Primary election

Early polls showed a strong lead for Alex, however recent trends have shown a potentially competitive race. While Alex has remained in the lead for most of the polls, Solaris has continued to gain popularity and poses a challenge for Alex in the primary election. Solaris and Alex are the strong favorites among those who have been polled, and are expected to win by a large margin compared to other candidates who are polling at much lower percentages.

## Debates

### November 2022 debate

 Key:
P  Participant
A  Absent
 PresidentFinolian
**AC5230**
 1

The first debate was held on the HHW Elections Discord server between November 18 and 20, 2022. All declared candidates, except AC (New Democratic) and newly-declared candidate NAHML (DAB), participated in the debate. Administrator StrawberryMaster (Jordan/SM) served as the debate moderator. The main topics of debate were transparency, the future of the #news-politics channel, and the issue of whether reclaimable slurs would be allowed or not in the server.

Alex (Independent), as the incumbent, focused on their experience and credentials, citing that the community had grown in size while immaturity was kept into a minimum. They also criticized candidate Dynah (Independent), saying that "was much more prevalent and widespread" under her tenure, and saying the community deserved to "not have a president who is impulsive and unable to make rational decisions, especially in times of crisis". In regard to reclaiming slurs, they stated they were open to that idea but would not take action on it for the time being, and debated this issue with candidate Kaiser (Civic Party), who was more opposed to the measure. They were also opposed to reviving #news-politics, and said they were in favor of publicizing private conversations from staff channels by request.

Dynah (Independent) praised her external experience, including their write-in campaign for Governor of Vermont, and said she "valued honesty above all in [her] campaign". They also criticized incumbent Alex, saying their administration, while good, had failed to correctly tackle issues like immaturity, and said she had "reached a point of peace" where they could now think clearly and work for the server.

Kaiser (Civic Party) separated himself from other candidates in the issue of reclaiming slurs, saying context was important and positioning himself against racial slurs, and if elected, would submit a proposal to the administration that would be tested for 1-3 weeks before becoming official, with a survey being issued a month later to review the effects of the policy. He also positioned himself against the return of news-politics, saying HHW would be "better off without it", and indicated his support for a form to release pre-2021 classified materials from the staff channels.

Oil (Independent) positioned initially positioned himself against allowing the usage of reclaimed slurs, but backtracked, stating "a few reclaimable slurs could be allowed back in the future", though not currently.

Solaris (Liberal), the leading candidate in the November 9-12 poll, was more muted than his fellow candidates, but aligned himself somewhat with Alex and Dynah.