Author's Note: Another week, another chapter! We start to see some progress in some subjects already discussed in this chapter, but huge stumbling blocks in other areas. Nothing is going to be simple!

….

Imperfect

Three weeks and four days to go. They had to make the election happen. The response from the public, in both the Capitol and the districts, was largely positive, and people were anticipating the day they would get to make their choice.

The election committee set up as an aside from the council were under no illusions as to the task ahead. Beetee was working on the infrastructure with Halley's support and Plutarch Heavensbee was focussing on communications and voter engagement. Civil servants from the old administration, cleared for work in the new arrangements, along with advisers from Thirteen were arranging the logistics.

The people of Panem were simply to vote for their new President. The first democratically elected President of Panem no less. Further governmental structures would follow on later once larger decisions had been made by those entrusted by the people. The districts would get to choose their leaders, officially, later in the year.

The announcement had been made that on the 4th of February from eight o'clock in the morning, the people of Panem would cast their votes. Each eligible voter would cast their vote by ranking their top three candidates. The ballot paper would be placed in a sealed box, opened only once the voting had finished at eight in the evening, under the scrutiny of civil servants drafted in to oversee the process. The results would be announced the same night with the new President taking office on the morning of the 5th of February.

Everyone who had turned nineteen by, or on, the date of the election would be able to vote. The age of majority was still defined by ageing out of the reaping and there was no time to change that. Such a change would be bound to cause confusion on the day itself, so the simplest solution was to continue with the understanding of adulthood currently shared across the country. The day was going to be busy and stressful regardless, and there would likely be some issues, but the elections committee did not want to be managing hordes of invalid votes.

There had been arguments amongst the council as to the criteria for the candidates themselves. The council had to agree on the most significant concerns amongst themselves and the actions of the committee also needed their approval. Both Montgomery and Silver from Thirteen wanted to narrow the field to those who had served in a form of public service or office, but that suggestion was hastily dismissed as it would drastically restrict people's choices and may well field some undesirable candidates. This was to be a fresh start after all. Enobaria had reported that the fighters in Two favoured someone with a military background, and their leader Colonel Lon was thinking of standing. They were not going to rule out those with a military background altogether unless evidence of unsavoury, unsuitable behaviour came to light. So, if Colonel Lon was to stand, there would likely be nothing the council could do about it, other than hope his pro-Capitol messages did not gain much traction beyond his supporters in Two.

There were people across the districts who wanted to see someone in power who had carried out some form of work for a set number of years. They did not want an inexperienced, naive President. But that was partially resolved by ensuring that nobody under nineteen would be able to stand. But criteria based on work would be difficult to set. What work, in what industry, and for how long? They would never find a single set of criteria based on those rules.

It was decided that so long as a candidate was over nineteen, of sound mind, and there was no evidence of them taking part in atrocities or abusing the power given to them in a military, official, or leadership role, they would be able to stand in the election. It was not perfect, but it would work.

Beetee had been able to assure the council that any digital infrastructure would be in place by the 4th. Somehow, the citizenship database had been left untouched and was still operating. He would have to make minor adjustments, but he and Halley would be able to manage.

Plutarch was busy preparing simple communications to be shared across Panem. Illiteracy rates were high, so he was preparing television broadcasts that would illustrate the voting process. Baffled civil servants were drafted in to represent voters and election officials and were filmed demonstrating the voting process. Screens were to be placed in city centres and marketplaces so the broadcasts would be played publicly, giving as many people as possible the chance to be informed about the voting process.

There were tensions between the Capitol-born officials and those drafted in from Thirteen too. They had different ways of working, of approaching problems, and finding solutions were not always easy. There was a level of mistrust and when one group volunteered someone from outside their working group for a role, the other would be suspicious and begin thinking up ulterior motives. Halley knew that Beetee was more than capable of resolving most of the technological issues, so she spent time mediating between the two groups of officials. She was straight-talking, quick thinking but easy to get along with, and the fact that she had no reason to trust either the Capitol or Thirteen officials but willingly worked with them, eased tensions somewhat. Everyone had soon realised that the victors were not trusting people, but if they were willing to give it a try, then maybe working together would be easier than they were making it out to be.

….

Colonel Lon was furious. The fighting had reached Two's city centre and there were casualties on both sides. Prisoners were taken and his supporters outnumbered all other prisoners by at least four to one. He had gone to meet Two's new leadership but the capture of several of his fighters had left him reluctant to compromise. His people were being unfairly treated, the consequences of having been on the losing side, he explained. But neither Two's leaders nor the new council saw it that way.

Enobaria had taken part in many a frustrated call home. She did not want to be the representative of the only district seen to be harking back to the Capitol days. The fighting was now their public image, and it was doing nothing to rehabilitate the district in the eyes of many of their fellow countrymen. On behalf of the council, she was calling for an immediate ceasefire and surrender of Colonel Lon's troops, on the basis that if they failed to follow instructions, soldiers would be drafted into Two to put down the uprising.

By the time Colonel Lon met Two's new leader, Commander Hadrian, tensions had reached boiling point and neither side was ready to back down from their original positions. Hadrian demanded an immediate end to the fighting and Colonel Lon demanded that they continue picking up their supporters and travelling across the district.

But support for the Capitol and Colonel Lon weakened further away from the mountains and Commander Hadrian hoped that the uprising would begin to fade. He did not want the fighting to ruin the brief peace they were starting to enjoy in Two's centre after being the epicentre of the civil war before the fall of the Capitol. He could not allow more people to die and for Two to tear itself apart even further. The tensions and scars left across the district would be slow to heal. Families and friends were divided, entire communities distrusting of each other, and he wanted to rebuild and to prove to the rest of Panem that they were more than just Capitol lapdogs. Colonel Lon was doing nothing to disabuse the other districts and the temporary council of that notion.

The criteria had been set and there was nothing to stop Colonel Lon from standing for the Presidential election and Commander Hadrian was not going to stand in his way. It would be up to him and his Capitol-backing supporters to prove that their views had support beyond the mountainous borders between District Two and the Capitol. When they failed at that, and he was sure they would, especially after conversations with Enobaria and Commander Paylor, it would then be Colonel Lon's choice if he wished to stand for election when the time came for the districts to pick their leaders. Hadrian would deal with that when the matter arose. For now, he had a ceasefire to enforce and a relative peace to maintain.

Colonel Lon was surprised at the total lack of opposition for his bid to stand in the election. He knew there was support in the Capitol and the Capitol held well beyond a third of the nation's population. There were thousands of votes to be had there and he believed he had a chance in District One too. Commander Hadrian was simply too confident. For even if he did not win, he would create a national conversation and they would no longer be ignored.

He did not agree outright to the ceasefire, he was not going to give the pretenders in charge of Two that much leeway. But he did agree not to provoke conflict as they passed through Two's centre. His supporters and troops would carry on through the district, advancing further away from the mountains and amassing more supporters until they could not be ignored by anyone. If someone started a fight with them, they would not back down. Maybe he had decided to compromise a little, given that he may have a route to candidacy in the elections, but he and his forces were not giving up.

….

Whilst District Four enjoyed peace and Three began to rebuild, other plans were afoot in District Six. Their new leader, hastily chosen as the Capitol retreated, had been assassinated. Morphling dealers were still rife and had taken control over entire sectors of Six's main city and some of the smaller towns further afield. Conflict was about to erupt in a turf war between dealers as they all vied to fill the power vacuum.

Close associates of the former leader desperately called Poppy home from the Capitol. Through Claudia and Levi's addictions, she had come across many of District Six's most prolific dealers. She had previously got them to listen, and they knew what lengths she had gone to when they did not. They needed someone who could stop the conflict from erupting and was respected throughout the district.

Six knew what Poppy had done for them and in return, they kept her identity and whereabouts secret during the war. She had always represented them well, had a wide network of contacts and seemed to manage an inordinate number of tasks successfully and all at the same time. If there was one person who could stop the situation from escalating, it was her. Six trusted her.

That meant that Six was short of a council representative but Poppy, along with some of the council's assistants managed to locate a friend of hers prior to her departure. A former train conductor, familiar to both Poppy and Linden for passing on their messages had been made responsible for organising the clearing and repairing of the railway tracks in and around the Capitol and had proven competent. Poppy trusted him and he had been a leader during the fighting in Six and a trusted asset in the years prior. He had worked in Seven, One and the Capitol, had managed to convert fellow workers in the districts and the Capitol to the cause and had been relaying secret communications for years. He was never caught, and information had never fallen into the wrong hands when he was in charge.

….

It was early in the morning. Three weeks and three days to go until the election. Halley, Beetee, Plutarch and some of the civil servants working on the elections were in discussions prior to the council's first meeting of the day. News of the assassination of Six's new leader had made the national news and Poppy's return home was being broadcast. Staring at the screen, Beetee looked hugely relieved, Plutarch was laughing slightly to himself, and Halley was unable to stop herself from crying.

Poppy had returned to Six safely, and to her (and their) surprise, had been met by Linden, who they had all presumed dead. All Poppy had been able to say to Halley was that he had been shot, but evidently, the shooting had not been fatal, for Linden had made his way to Six and was stood waiting for Poppy, clearly injured, but very much alive. Halley had been worried for her friend as she was running from one job to another for the council, communicating with people back home, trying to promote communications with their international neighbours and attempting to look out for Johanna Mason's welfare. Halley quietly believed that her friend was keeping herself busy, so she did not have to address what she thought had happened.

But Poppy's wellbeing was now something Halley could put further down her list of immediate concerns. The election was upcoming, there were arguments on the council, antagonism in Two, the assassination in Six, rebuilding in Three and her own personal safety and that of the victors as a collective to consider.

The three re-joined the conversations. They would let their friends have their happiness, but they were fully aware that Poppy had a huge job on her hands, and they did too.

The committee was in discussions as to how to communicate the electoral system and the results to the population, so it was accessible and easily understood. It had quickly become clear that a simple, fifty-plus-one majority in terms of individual votes would not work and would not represent Panem's population. Entire districts would be ignored and there would hardly be any point in Twelve's eight-hundred strong population voting at all. Voters from the Capitol alone could sway the entire election.

Committee members from the Capitol and Thirteen had been perusing various texts and mentioning all kinds of systems. Electoral colleges, constituencies, proportional representation, first past the post, and trying to make something stick. But nothing felt perfectly right or achievable in the time they had.

Ultimately it had been decided that to win the presidency, a candidate would need to win eight of the fourteen territories. That much had been made public but there had been questions as to why the candidate with simply the most votes would not automatically win, that seemed the most straightforward, accessible strategy after all. However, as soon as Beetee and Plutarch explained the dual possibilities of low turnout in several districts and the implications of a single candidate winning overwhelmingly with voters in the Capitol, the council were on board. They just had to make sure the voters understood.

People across the districts had no idea of the sheer population of the Capitol, they may have overestimated Twelve's population even before its destruction and District Thirteen was an entirely unknown entity. Individual voters had to believe that their votes would matter and this way the districts all have a voice.

Everyone on the council and working on the election was hopeful of a high turnout, but in truth, they could not predict what would happen. There would be people eager to participate, politically engaged, taken in by the novelty of the experience, but equally, those who did not trust the process, the council, the candidates, and those who were apathetic. They had to reach voters in the most rural locations, involve and reintegrate District Thirteen and manage the expectations of the many types of Capitol voter, from the worker to the former socialite anxious about their future.

The weight of the responsibility was felt by all those involved. The process had to run smoothly, the average person had to understand where and how to vote, and the result must be clearly communicated and easily understood. In a nation inexperienced in democracy, unfamiliar with their neighbours in different districts, they had to bring everyone together to decide their next step forward.

...

Just a note, for those unfamiliar with all my characters and victors: Linden is the victor from the 41st Hunger Games from District Seven. He and Poppy had been secretly in a relationship for eighteen years by this point, with only their inner circle aware.