The Craziest “Craziest Person” Election Ever?
(Disclaimer: The author was Election Commissioner during the July 2025 Regional Elections.)
For about as long as elections have been held in NationStates’ Oldest Democracy, TSP has regularly held elections for a “Craziest Person/Secretary of Silly” for the region. The office of Craziest Person currently does not exist under TSP law, but it has nonetheless continued to be contested throughout TSP history, and is arguably as much a cultural institution of the Coalition as lampshades, llamas, glasses of SPIT, and debates over what dessert is best.
Soon after accepting the nominations, most of said candidates presented their objectives in several campaign posts over on the TSP forums. Questions and discussion soon ensued, and the voting period started on July 19th.
This July saw perhaps one of the most dramatic Craziest Person elections in recent memory, with 20 candidates (excluding perennial candidate RON) listed on the ballot and 23 candidates being ranked at least once. In contrast, the previous election in April saw 10 candidates ranked, and the election before that in January saw 5 candidates ranked.
The April contest was perhaps a harbinger for how hotly contested the most recent race would become. One of the defining moments of that election (beyond the contest over TSP veteran Belschaft’s presence on the ballot) was then-Election Commissioner (EC) KrisKringle/Kringalia’s instruction that ballots had to rank Indiana (Kringle’s late pet rabbit) first, which led to candidate New Halo attempting an ultimately unsuccessful legal challenge in the High Court. Another defining event prior to the July election was the RMB Mayor Election held in May, a throwback to the Local Council elections of yore.
“Now that is a long ballot…”
The July 2025 election started out as usual by TSP standards, with a barrage of nominations for various candidates in various offices. What was certainly unusual was the number of candidates that declared their candidacy for the Craziest Person contest: within a day of nominations opening, 8 candidates (and 5 “magical creatures” nominated by Delegate @Griffindor) were in the running. Presumably in reference to the number of candidates, then-Prime Minister @ProfessorHenn nominated “every living being” for Craziest, followed by @Of_the_Ages nominating “every nonliving being” in response.
Many of the candidates were TSP stalwarts, including RMB moderators @Volaworand and @Konsa, RPer @CayonNS, and RMB regulars @Zhuang and @Ace, but there were other candidates that are newer to TSP as well, such as @ExquisiteGentleman Candidates were drawn to the contest for many reasons, but perhaps Volaworand voiced it best when he said that, unlike running for Delegate or Prime Minister, campaigning for being Craziest Person “fit [their] schedule”.
An unexpected factor leading into the election was @KrisKringle running for Prime Minister, leading to lordnwahs being appointed as EC by the Council on Regional Security less than 12 hours before the start of voting. As EC, Nwahs decided to add some candidates that did not formally declare on the nomination thread, such as Gre Milotramia (who opened a campaign thread to be “Craziest Man”) and TSP veteran Mavenu (who was campaigning because he’s cute). Just like previous Craziest Person elections, Indiana and Meaningful Cough also made an appearance on the final ballot. Nwahs also added a candidate of his own choosing, the Astor Place Cube.
Not just another popularity contest
Quite a few of the candidates for Craziest took their candidacy very seriously, with several candidates making their case for why they should be elected by making a long list of reasons why they should be seen as craziest in their campaign threads. Former RMB Mayor Zhuang claimed that he “[has] nuked the entire state of California at least 7 times”, while Andersmeda “[executed] 4 people this week by tossing them into a volcano very elegantly”. Konsa noted that fried penguin was a national delicacy in their nation, while Ace mentioned their authorship of the (in)famous TSP Sitcom.
Candidates also promised things to voters if they were elected as Craziest: Franz promised 3550 things, including “1 free Google search” and a “random military invasion” as well as quite a few French flags, while second-time candidate CayonNS promised to declare himself as cute (potentially to Mavenu’s chagrin) and return a hat they stole from Volaworand.
Campaign threads for Craziest saw a lot of engagement, with many threads descending to a scene not unlike something one would find in the Hall of Spam on the TSP forums. Voters engaged candidates with questions, some fairly serious (like a question on whether a particular parody religion made fun of actual real-world religious belief), others anything but (like whether one would eat “the hat”).
Crazy Candidates, Crazy Votes, Crazy Results
Due to the July election returning to manual private message ballots rather than the widget-based voting of the last few elections, voters could once again list fairly arbitrary Craziest Person ballots. Some voters chose to write-in candidates (including Belschaft, KrisKringle and Cryo), which is allowed for Craziest Person elections. Many voters listed votes that included numbers large and small (since the election was held under instant-runoff voting), with a few ballots ending up being a challenge for the EC to interpret.
Because Craziest Person is not an official election, this gives the EC much leeway in terms of interpreting ballots. Previous iterations of manual ballot elections would count large numerical votes as representing a large number of first preference votes, but this time around, EC Nwahs decided to interpret all ballots as representing preferences, based on descending numerical order, so that the election would adhere more closely to the ideal of “one person, one ballot”. Some choices ended up still being fairly arbitrary (for example, if a complex number was involved, the EC would use lexicographic ordering).
The end result was 38 valid votes cast for the Craziest Person election. Due to the significant number of candidates, the election was only resolved after 14 rounds of counting, with Volaworand winning at the end of the day with 14 first preferences, and CayonNS coming second with 11 first preferences (13 ballots would end up being exhausted at the end of counting).
What’s next?
Reactions to the Craziest Person election results were mixed. Some expressed disappointment, with Griffindor asking for the EC’s address and Henn saying they would “stop being so nice to Nwahs”. Others, such as CayonNS and North, mentioned that they preferred how this iteration of the Craziest Person election was conducted as compared to previous ones.
The winner of the Craziest Person contest, Volaworand, expressed genuine surprise for his victory. He thanked voters and promised “[crazy] hats for everyone”. Only time will tell if they keep to their campaign promise of a “International Silliness Competition to declare the Grand Poohba of Silliness”. The second-place candidate, CayonNS, noted that their campaign promises were not contingent on actually winning, and provided what Volaworand described as a “lovely visual aid” for the return of their stolen hat.
With the next regularly scheduled election to take place in October, voters of the Coalition can look forward to what future Craziest Person elections will have in store. More candidates? More outrageous claims? Election fraud? Leaving the counting of votes “as an exercise to the reader”, as Pronoun suggested? Stay tuned for more craziness!
Written by: LordNwahs