Voter Registry Act 2025

Voter Registry Act 2025

Passed by the Senate and signed by the President on 22 August 2025.

Preamble

Whereas It is necessary to maintain a registry of active voters;

'Be it enacted by the Senate of SimDemocracy'

Section 1: Registry Commission

Article 1: Establishment of Registry Commission

§1. The Registry Commission is established as an independent agency for the purposes of protecting the right to free and fair elections, which shall maintain the Registry of Voters, known in this Act as the Registry.

§2. The Registry Commission shall be led by the Registration Officer.

§3. In every election, a voter must provide their SUIT to the Electoral Commission along with their ballot.

§3.1. After every election, the Electoral Commission shall provide a list of SUITs which voted in an election to the Registry Commission, and the Registry Commission shall verify and return to the Electoral Commission, a list of the SUITs which are valid.

Article 2: Appointment of Officers

§1. The President or the Supervisor of Elections may appoint a Registration Officer, subject to the confirmation of a two-thirds majority of the Senate and a simple majority in a Public Referendum.

§1.1. This Public Referendum shall be given “Emergency” status, pursuant to §7.4. of “Part 8: Appendix” of the Constitution.

§2. If there is no Registration Officer, the appointed Registration Officer may, after confirmation in the Senate, serve provisionally until the conclusion of the Public Referendum.

§2.1. If the Public Referendum fails to confirm the Registration Officer, the Registration Officer’s position shall be deemed to be vacated.

§3. Unless otherwise specified, the Registration Officer shall serve till a different Registration Officer is appointed and confirmed.

§4. If the Registration Officer indicates their intention to resign from the position, it shall be the duty of the President or Supervisor of Elections to appoint a new Registration Officer within 72 hours, in accordance with this Article.

§5. The Registration Officer may appoint a Deputy Registration Officer, who shall serve as Registration Officer if the Registration Officer is impeached, resigns, or is otherwise incapacitated.

§5.1. Any reference to “Registration Officer” in section 2 includes the Deputy Registration Officer and any other person authorized by the Registration Officer.

§6. The Registration Officer may appoint any support staff as may be necessary.

§6.1. These appointments may be revoked at any time.

§7. The budget of the Registry Commission shall be reflected in the First Schedule.

Section 2: Registry of Voters

Article 3: Qualifications of Voters

§1. Any person who –

(a) Is a member of a core territory; and,

(b) Has a Discord Account older than three (3) months, or a Reddit Account older than three (3) months; or,

(c) Has a valid waiver,

shall be qualified to be a voter.

§2. The Registration Officer may issue a waiver to an account, if satisfied that it is not an alternate account and is not disqualified by virtue of Article 4.

Article 4: Disqualifications of Voters

§1. Any person who provides false or misleading information to the Registry Commission while registering to vote may be struck off the Registry of Voters upon request by the Registration Officer to a Judge.

§2. Any person who –

(a) Has been sentenced to a ban of duration longer than 90 days;

(b) Has been summarily banned under any current law or law in effect at the time of the summary ban;

(c) Has not responded to an inquiry pursuant to Article 7;

(d) Has been found guilty of an electoral crime in the past 30 days; or,

(e) Has not voted in the 5 most recent Senatorial Elections;

may be struck off the Registry of Voters by the Registration Officer.

§3.<ref name="fua3">Article 4§3 struck down by In re Fair Use of Alternate Accounts Act 2025 [2026] SDSC 1 on 3 March 2026.</ref>

§4. When an account is “struck off” the Registry of Voters, the associated SUIT may not be marked as valid in any elections afterwards unless the account successfully re-registers.

Article 5: Registration of Voters

§1. The Registry Commission shall create and maintain an application form for persons to register to vote.

§2. Responses to the form must be attended to prior to each regular election.

§3. The Registration Officer may make such inquiries, as part of the registration process by contacting the person applying, or through questions in the application form, for the purposes of satisfying themself that the person is qualified to vote and not disqualified from voting, and any person who the Registration Officer contacts as part of such inquiries is bound to state completely and truthfully what they know about the matter being inquired into.

§3.1. The Registration Officer may make regulations for the purposes of ensuring that a person who registers to vote has listed their own accounts.

§4. When registering to vote, persons must create a SimDemocracy Unique Identification Token (SUIT) in the application form, which shall function as that person’s voting password.

§5. Any person may apply with the Registry Commission to change their SUIT.

§6. If the Registration Officer is satisfied that a person’s SUIT has been used by someone other than the person, they may change the SUIT, and serve the notice in the Second Schedule on the person, in the manner stated in the Criminal Code.

§7. Any person who completes the application form is required to answer each question truthfully and completely.

§8. If the Registration Officer is satisfied –

(a) That an account registering to vote satisfies the requirements in Article 3 and is not disqualified by Article 4<ref name="5s8amend">Voter Registry Act Amendment passed and signed on 29 August 2025.</ref>;

(b) That there is clear and convincing evidence that the account is not an alternate account;

they shall accept a person’s application and cause them to be added onto the Registry of Voters.

Article 6: Contents of Registry

§1. The Registry of Voters shall contain at least the following two elements –

(a) The usernames, user IDs or such other account information of each person who registers to vote and is qualified to vote under Article 5 and not disqualified by virtue of Article 4,

(b) The SimDemocracy Unique Identification Token of the aforesaid persons.

§2. At the conclusion of each month, the Registration Officer shall notify the public that the contents of the Registry are available for inspection, and release the latest version of the Registry for public inspection. This released version of the registry shall be known as the Public Register.

§2.1. The Public Register shall only contain the information under §1(a).

§3. Under no circumstances may a sitting member of the Electoral Commission, the Supervisor of Elections, or a person who has been a member of the Electoral Commission in the past three (3) months be granted access to the Registry of Voters.

Article 7: Objection to contents

§1. If any person who believes that they are entitled to appear on the Registry is omitted from the Registry, they may apply to the Registry Commission to have their name entered into the register.

§2. Any person who appears in the Registry may object to the inclusion of themselves or the name of any other person appearing in the register to the Registry Commission.

§3. After receiving an objection in §1 or §2, the Registration Officer must inquire into the complaint as soon as practicable, and perform such actions as they deem necessary, and must inform the person of the result of the objection.

§4. If, pursuant to §2, a person who appears in the Registry objects to the inclusion of another person, and the Registration Officer is satisfied that further information is necessary to determine whether the person is qualified to vote under Article 5 and not disqualified by virtue of Article 4, the Registration Officer may require the person to respond to such inquiries as they may deem necessary, by issuing the notice provided in the Second Schedule to the person in the manner of serving notices specified in the Criminal Procedure Code.

Article 8: Protection of Registry

§1. No person shall be compelled to produce any information in the Registry of Voters in any court of law, unless the information has been struck off the Registry.

§2. The contents of the Registry of Voters shall not be subject to any provision in the Securing Expanded Confidentiality in Reports Evidence and Transmissions Act.

§3. The contents of the Registry of Voters shall not be subject to subpoena except by the Senate.

Article 9: Investigations into fraudulent or illegitimate votes by the Registry Commission and Electoral Commission

§1. If the Supervisor of Elections is satisfied that there is reason to believe that certain ballots may be fraudulent or illegitimate, they may provide the SUITs linked to the said ballots to the Registration Officer, and direct the Registry Commission to investigate the accounts.

Section 3: Others

Note: Section Header added by the Archive Commission for increased readability and navigation

Article 10: Repeals

§1. The Voter Registration Act 2024 is repealed.

§2. Article 2, §1 of the Voter Rights Act 2023 is repealed.

§3. The Separating the Department of Voter Registration from the Executive Act 2025 is repealed.

First Schedule

§1. The budget of the Registry Commission shall be 1500 tau per 2 weeks.

§2. The budget of the Electoral Commission shall be 1500 tau per 2 weeks.

Second Schedule

Article 5: Notice of forced change of SUIT

To: Voter

TAKE NOTICE that Article 5 of the Voter Registry Act 2025 allows me to change your SimDemocracy Unique  Identification Token if I am satisfied that it has been used by a person other than yourself;
TAKE NOTICE that I am satisfied as aforementioned;
AND FURTHER TAKE NOTICE that I have changed your SimDemocracy Unique Identification Token, which you may reset by contacting the Registry Commission.

Article 7: Notice of Inquiry

To: Voter

TAKE NOTICE that I have received objections to the inclusion of your name in the Registry of Voters;
AND FURTHER TAKE NOTICE that if you do not respond to the following inquiries, your registration may be struck off the Registry:
[List inquiries]

Explanatory Statement

This bill repeals the Voter Registration Act and SDVRE Act, and enacts a new version of the act with updated language which repairs certain issues which hindered the Department of Voter Registration (“DVR”) under the previous act. It also makes the Department of Voter Registration slightly more independent, by

a) Disallowing the President from automatically becoming the Secretary of Voter Registration (“SoVR”) if there is no SoVR;

b) Requiring a two-thirds majority in the senate and a simple majority in public referendum to confirm a Secretary of Voter Registration (now known as the Registration Officer); and,

c) Allowing both the Elections Supervisor or the President to appoint a Secretary of Voter Registration.

Among other matters, the bill resolves the following issues:

a)Inability of the DVR to conduct inquiries into suspicious registrations;

b)Codification of judgment disallowing use of SUITs as evidence in court (see In re Department of Voter Registration search warrant);

c)No way for members of the public to check if they are on the registry (the Unregistered Voter and Registered Voter roles have been rather inaccurate).

Explanatory Notes

Section 1 of this bill relates to the establishment of the Registry Commission.

Article 1 establishes the purpose of the commission, to satisfy the requirements in Article 4 of the Constitution. It also states that the commission is led by the Registration Officer.

Article 2 manages the appointment of the Registration Officer and deputies and staff. In particular –

a) The Registration Officer is appointed by the President or Secretary of Elections, and approved by a 2/3rds majority of the senate and a simple majority in a public referendum.

b) The Registration Officer may be fired by appointing and confirming a different Registration Officer, subject to the same requirements.

c) The Registration Officer may appoint a deputy, as well as staff.

Article 3 sets out the qualifications for voting, which are –

a) Three-month old discord or reddit account;

b) Member of core territory (member in the discord or the reddit); or,

c) Has a valid waiver.

It also sets out the manner in which the Registration Officer may provide a waiver for (a).

Article 4 sets out the ways in which voters may be struck off the registry. These are –

a) Providing false or misleading info to the Registry Commission

b) Ban longer than 90 days

c) Summary ban (CTSA, GEETSA, CPC, etc)

d) Fails to respond to an inquiry under article 7

e) Found guilty of electoral crimes

f) Has not voted in 5 most recent elections

g) Alt account

In particular, (f) is necessary due to the large number of registrations which contain no user ID and which are inactive. It is very difficult to contact such persons if they vote to ensure that their vote is legitimate, as they may have changed their usernames or left the server.

Article 5 provides the manner for the registration of voters.

§6. provides that if the Registration Officer is satisfied that someone else has used a person’s SUIT, the Registration Officer may change it, with notification to the owner.

Article 6 requires the registry to be made public from time to time. This is because the Discord roles may be outdated. Only the account information may be made public.

Article 7 provides the manner to which persons may object to the inclusion of themselves or others in the Registry (for instance, if they did not register but find their name on it anyway).

Article 8 exempts the Registry from subpoena (except for the Senate’s subpoena, which is constitutionally provided for), as well as the SECRET Act (to prevent the President from having access to its contents), and protects its contents from being used in court (see In re DVR Search Warrant).

Article 9 sets out that the Electoral Commission may direct the Registry Commission to perform investigations.

Article 10 repeals certain related acts, as well as a section in the Voter Rights Act which inexplicably allows the Electoral Commission to process voter registrations.