CCU presidential election, 2019

The **CCU presidential election of 2019** will be the first quadrennial presidential election, set to be held in 2019. This follows President Elayne Harpaz's one-year term from 2010 to 2011 during the Union founding, as well as Tyron Ferrer's six-year term from 2012 to 2018. After Ferrer announced his exit from the Union, a crisis-mode had been activated, which led to a CCU blackout. However, CCU later confirmed that a new President would be found, followed by the announcement of the first ever election, in November 2018. Only nationals from the 59 member countries were permitted to enter, to serve a four-year term effective from 2019 to 2023. The Vice President would take over as the President during Election Period, with a vacant Vice President seat.

The rules of the Election allowed for two Parties and one Independent to be on the ballot. For the People and Union entered the ballots being the two most popular Parties, with Elden Dunham and Evalyn Staples respectively representing them. Elois Dang represented herself as an Independent. Other candidates from different parties or Independents were also allowed to continue their candidacy for presidency, without any support from debates or ballots. Nevertheless, they did not receive even 1% from any state, having received 0.4% at most from one state.

United Kingdom, Netherlands and Sweden were allowed to vote, despite having candidates. A Union campaign had been initiated in the country, in an attempt to sway voters from voting for their own candidate, using *Brexit* aftermath as an advertising mechanism. Despite the Union campaign, the For the People Party easily won with 77% votes. The campaign war, however, resulted in a record low of 3% for the Independents.

In the case that no candidates were to receive the minimum of 276 electoral votes, the newly-elected Senate would vote between the top two candidates.

For the presidential race, a "winner-take-it-all" system is followed and used, while the Senate House uses a proportional system, counting all votes rather than just the winning Party's. The next House race would then take place in 2021, allowing Independents and other Parties to nab seats from each other.

Elois Dang's campaign had highly been dependent on receiving votes from all the smaller CCU countries, which although worked, did not give her much electoral votes. However, her campaign allowed her to carry a larger amount of states than Staples, who had twice the amount of Electoral votes than her. This gave an advantage to For the People Party, and also gave the Independents a higher stake in the Senate. Dang conceded the election at 10:32 p.m. (CET) after it had been assumed she could no longer surpass either candidates.
The leading nominee, Elden Dunham, received 240 electoral votes, not enough to be projected the winner. A number of recounts took place in several countries, but a minority of votes were found to be miscounted, resulting in the newly elected Senate being appointed to vote between Dunham and Staples, the two electoral leaders.

Polling found that the Senate vote "would be close" as Independents could no longer vote for their nominee, but rather have to choose between Dunham and Staples. For the People would lead with a small 39.7% "majority", compared to Union's 27.6% "minority". Due to no Party holding a majority vote, the Independents were ultimately in charge of voting the next President, with their 32.8% stake in the Senate.

Following the Senate victory for Dunham, Staples announced her concession, "I respect the decision of the popular vote. I acknowledge Dunham's narrow victory in the Electoral College, and the Senate's decision to elect him as the President, and ask that all my supports do so as well. I will be looking forward to working with For the People and Independents to make CCU what it is today. And let's see what 2021 brings us." Staples' campaign had heavily revolved around carrying the bigger states, as well as Northern African countries with large populations, but was unable to take other states which had been carried by Independents.

## Senate vote

On 4 February 2019, For the People Party registered their votes, with all 46 Senators voting for their Nominee, Elden Dunham. The votes were verified the next day. On 11 February 2019, Union Party registered their votes, with all 32 Appointees voting for their Nominee, Evalyn Staples. Their votes were verified two days later, on 13 February 2019. By that date, Dunham had been winning by 46 votes, compared to Staples' 32. On 16 February 2019, it was reported that an Independent Senator would be absent due to "personal reasons". Although the CCU initially denied this, they confirmed in the morning of the 18 February vote that 37 Independents would be present during the vote. By the one-hour mark, it had been apparent that two additional Independents had boycott the vote and therefore were not present. This put the Independent total to 35 voters, and was considered "a massive advantage for Dunham, who now only needed 11 votes, compared to Staples' requirement of 25 votes. In case of a tie-breaker, Previous President Ferrer, (a known supporter of Dunham) who had previously led the Senate would cast the tie-breaking vote, therefore lowering Dunham's necessity to 10 votes. Later that day, it was confirmed that 33 present Senators had registered their votes, with two having registered as "Present", and the rest having their votes undisclosed. This lowered the Independents votes to just 33, one vote greater than the Union Party. This move had officially ruled out the possibility of a tie-breaker, with Dunham needing 10 votes and Staples needing 24. On 22 February 2018, the CCU verified the votes and proclaimed For the People and their Nominee Elden Dunham the winners in a 57–54–5 vote. 22 Independents voted for Union, whilst 11 voted For the People; 5 opted out of the vote. Dunham was subsequently inaugurated as the President on 12 March 2019. The vote was regarded as "highly controversial" by the press and tabloids.

## Candidates

### **For the People Party**

* **Elden Dunham, British television executive for BBC (2014–), *For the People* Party Nominee**
* Mia Haskins, Irish television entertainment executive for RTÉ (2011–)
* Felisha Nadeau, French former Vice President of entertainment at France Télévisions (2013–17)

The *For the People* Party primaries was held on 10 January 2018, with three candidates from France, Ireland and United Kingdom vying to become the nominee for the Party. Dunham was endorsed by previous President Ferrer, making him a frontrunner. A nominee was required to win at least 50.0% votes in order to secure the party nomination. Frontrunner Dunham received 49.6% of votes, thanks to extensive campaigning from Haskins, as well as noteworthy write-in candidate Galloway. With no candidate having received 50% votes, Haskins stated that she would not concede. Nadeau announced her concession later that day, wishing her luck to the other opponents. A run-off was therefore confirmed to be held between Dunham and Haskins, to secure the nomination. Dunham narrowly won the run-off by a 4.8% gap, enough to be projected as the winner. Despite this, Dunham had a 28.1% vote increase compared to Haskins' 60.6%, a result of continued excessive campaigning. Overall, the run-off had a 21.3% turnout increase compared to the original primary. Haskins conceded the election on 17 January, stating that "This journey has been great, and it's been an honor to represent Ireland, RTÉ, change, in this election. A win is not just an in-paper win, but also a self honor and happiness. I therefore announce my concession to Dunham, whom I endorse as the best potential candidate as the new CCU President."

### **Union Party**

* **Evalyn Staples, Dutch Head of Entertainment executive for AVROTROS (2012–), Union Party nominee**
* Gaston Angel, German television executive for NDR (2015–)

The Union Party primary election was held on 17 January, in which Staples received 55.1% votes, 5.1% above the threshold to become the nominee. Angel therefore conceded, wishing his luck to Staples as the Union Party nominee. As only two candidates were announced as candidates, the election saw more momentum for Write-in candidates.

 Popular vote
 Evalyn Staples | 2,761
 Gaston Angel | 1,355
 Dakota Crowe (Write-in)
 Harris Bearden (Write-in)
 William Aleman (Write-in)

### **Independent**

* **Elois Dang, Swedish television executive producer, Independent nominee**
* Rosalyn Whitley, Maltese television producer

Although Independents were part of no Party, a primary was necessary to be held between the Party-less candidates, to avoid voting discrepancy for the main election. Dang won with a percentage higher than any other primaries, which was followed by Whitley's and Mercado's concessions. It marks the first time in any primaries for a Write-in candidate to surpass an officially written candidate.

 Popular vote
 Elois Dang | 1,722
 Jami Mercado (Write-in)
 Rosalyn Whitley | 761
 Gregorio Doan (Write-in)
 Sharita Kitchens (Write-in)
 Dwain Danner (Write-in)

### **Other third-party candidates**

Other parties had attempted to gain seats to be internationally recognized as candidates, but did not receive enough votes. As a result, they were only eligible to enter the presidency race as write-in candidates, twice the work as opposed to shading in a candidate. However, some extensive campaigning allowed them to receive around 5% votes in certain states, and more or less in others.

## Previous presidential leaders

**Independent**

* Elayne Harpaz (2010–2011)
* Tyron Ferrer (2012–2018)

**^1** Although Ferrer identified himself as an Independent during his term, he later identified himself as a member of the For the People Party, after it was founded.
### **Endorsements**

* Tyron Ferrer publicly endorsed fellow For the People Party member Elden Dunham during the primary, and echoed his endorsement for Dunham during the presidential race.
* Elayne Harpaz, who continued to not associate herself with any Party, stated she had long moved on from matters involving the Union, and as such, did not endorse any candidate. Reports claimed that this move put Dunham in the lead.

## Future elections

The CCU stated that in future elections they could change the default election format to 2-party race, with other Parties/Independents needing a certain amount of pre-votes to be internationally accepted in the race. However, the CCU stated that such a thing would not be decided without a vote, by the new administrating Party and President. Independents also hinted the possibility of not passing the vote, to give outsiders a chance. Meanwhile, For the People and Union did not publicly state any information.

1. ↑ a
2. ↑ a
3. ↑ a
4. ↑ a
5. ↑ a
6. ↑ a
7. ↑ a
8. ↑ a
9. ↑ a
10. ↑ a
11. ↑ a
12. ↑ a
13. ↑ a
14. ↑ a
15. ↑ a
16. ↑ a
17. ↑ a
18. ↑ a
19. ↑ a
20. ↑ a
21. ↑ a
22. ↑ a
23. ↑ a
24. ↑ a
25. ↑ a
26. ↑ a
27. ↑ a
28. ↑ a
29. ↑ a
30. ↑ a
31. ↑ a
32. ↑ a
33. ↑ a
34. ↑ a
35. ↑ a
36. ↑ a
37. ↑ a
38. ↑ a
39. ↑ a
40. ↑ a