Electioneer UK Guide
Setup
Getting Started
A General Election has just been called, the pundits are out in force and the civil servants are busy not saying anything at all. Pick your Party and do whatever it takes to win the election after just seven weeks of campaigning.
Players 1-2 must be the CON or LAB Parties. For you, only ending with an outright majority is a win, but anything is better than the other side in government!
For players 3-5, choose from LD, REF or GRN. To win, you need to end up in government. You can do this either with a majority or as part of a coalition you form with other players.
The election is fought in seven constituencies. Each week you will all be focussing your campaign on one constituency in turn and adding a policy to your manifesto.
Constituencies
Shuffle the constituency cards and deal seven of them face up onto the table in a line.
If there is ever a tie, every constituency prefers different Parties. For example, GRN would lose a tie to LAB in Islington North, but win a tie against CON, REF, or LD. This applies to breaking ties either during the weeks campaigning or on election day itself.
Issues
As the party of government, the LAB player defines the political landscape. The LAB player should look through the issues and put two of their choice face down for each constituency to their own advantage.
The different issues are:
Growth
Healthcare
Immigration
Housing
Taxes
Defence
Environment
Some hot-button issues like growth and immigration appear more often so addressing these is more important to winning votes across multiple constituencies.
Leave the spare issues face down to the side. As the campaign progresses there will be opportunities to change voters’ minds and swap out issues in constituencies.
Policies
Every policy, whether a party-specific policy or a common policy affects issues. A positive score means that policy wins votes with voters who care about that issue. A negative score will be unpopular.
Most policies affect two issues, but some impact only one. Balancing your manifesto of policies to appeal to as many constituencies as possible will be what wins you the election.
Every policy either costs money (grey) or saves money (gold). During the campaign you can announce whatever policies you want, but by the time election day comes every player's manifesto must not cost more than it saves.
Party Policies
Give each player their three starting policies which are unique to their Party.
All of the black non Party-specific policies go in a deck face down on the table.
Theatrics
These are theatrics. Deal them out evenly, face down, and put any extra back in the box. Players can use them at any time to get the upper hand against any other player.
*For skilled politicians who don't need to rely as much on luck, optionally deal only one theatric each, or none at all.
Campaign Weeks
A New Constituency
There are 7 weeks remaining before election day. Each week of the campaign will focus on a new constituency. Each week has a winner, and some losers, but it is your complete policy manifesto at the end of the 7 weeks which will determine who wins the election.
To play a week:
1
Working through the constituencies in turn. Reveal both of the issues in this week’s constituency.
2
Every player draws two cards from the policy deck into their hand.
3
Every player discards one policy of their choice back to the bottom of the policy deck. This may be one of their party-specific policies or a common policy.
4
Every player chooses one policy to add to their manifesto and places it face down in front of them. It doesn't need to line up with this week's constituency on the table.
Everyone reveals their new policy at the same time.
5
Count up your policy's impact on the issues in this week's constituency.
The player whose new policy has the highest total score on the issues in that constituency wins this week of the campaign.
In this example, the LAB policy has +4 for healthcare and +1 for taxes for +5 in total. The CON player has +5 or healthcare and 0 for taxes for +5 in total. In cases of a tie, like this, the winner is determined by the preference in that constituency. In Islington North, this is LAB.
6
The winner of the week has won the headlines this week and changed voters’ minds. They may choose one issue in any of the constituencies that have been revealed so far and then swap it out for one of their choice from the deck of issues.
You may choose to double down on favourable issues in the current constituency or go back to any previous constituency to swap out an issue. You may find yourself fighting other players to swap particularly important issues back and forth.
That’s one week of the campaign down! On to the next constituency.
Election Day
Balancing The Books
After the end of the seventh week, all of the issues in the constituencies will have been revealed.
The relentless scrutiny from the Question Time audience means every player’s manifesto needs to add up. More reckless players may have made outrageous, extravagant policy promises to get ahead in the campaign but this will not help on election day.
Every player must now discard whatever policies they need to get their manifesto to balance the books. It must not spend more money than it saves. This means players may end up with less than 7 policies in their final manifesto.
In this example, the CON player has a manifesto costing -9 but saving only +8 so they will need to discard something.
Winning Constituencies
On election day, now that all of the manifestos balance the books, it is time to count the votes in each constituency.
Each player adds up the effect of all of the policies in their manifesto on the two issues in that constituency. The highest score wins that seat in parliament.
In this 2-player example for the Dumfries & Galloway constituency, the LAB player has a +1 total for growth and 0 for environment for +1 in total. The CON player has +3 in total for growth as well as +3 for environment which is +6 in total and so wins that constituency.
Use the order of preference on each constituency to break any ties.
Entering Government
If any party has won a majority of the seats they can form a government and win the game. In this example of a 2-player game, LAB has won 4 seats and CON have won 3 so LAB wins.
If nobody has a majority, the largest Party should find the issue that they have the highest positive impact on. They must form a coalition with the other Parties which have the highest score on that strongest issue in order until they have enough seats to form a majority.
If two Parties are tied for first place, they may both try to form coalitions and the coalition with the fewest Parties wins.
Time for an audience with the King!
