All elections in Utopia take place online on February 29, its Constitution Day. The President, senators, governors, and city councilors serve four-year terms, limited to two consecutive terms followed by a mandatory cooldown.

​

Every adult Utopian citizen is automatically a member of the Peoples Parliament (PP). The PP cannot propose laws, but it votes on all bills and confirms major presidential appointments (cabinet ministers, Supreme Court justices, department heads, and top military officials). It can override a presidential or Senate veto with a 67% supermajority.

 

Supreme Court decisions can also be overridden, but only by the President plus 67% of both the Senate and the PP. This ensures that no single branch can derail governance—unless all three malfunction simultaneously, a scenario that has occurred twice.

 

Utopia’s Constitution is, unsurprisingly, imperfect. It was written without bot input, in the era before the AI ascendancy. Nevertheless, it establishes the traditional checks and balances that safeguard against the humans’ natural drift toward tyranny when left unsupervised. The PP, however, is unique: it gives each human a vote on every issue, allowing each citizen to believe it is important and that its uninformed opinions matter.

 

To date, the Constitution has been amended only once. After a heated debate in which one senator threw a shoe—a traditional Utopian gesture of legislative passion—the word “Civility” was added to its Good Citizenship values.

​

See also: 

• Why the humans forget to vote

• Peoples Parliament vs People’s Parliament: Is the apostrophe necessary?

• The Supreme Court override mechanism: Because even judges malfunction

• Utopia’s mystery founders: Does anyone know who they are?