eLECTIONS is an enjoyable and educational simulation of a presidential election. It is played as a virtual board game, where virtual playing pieces hop along a three dimensional game board filled with national monuments, stacks of game cards, and a 3D spinner for determining player moves.

Players run their own campaigns, from defining their candidate's slate of issues, to dealing with unpredictable events, deciding where to campaign and how much to spend to, finally, seeing the election outcomes on an animated map. The data within the game simulates popular opinion held by the eLECTIONS' voters and can be swayed by campaign activities. It is a virtual polling system that lets players get under the hood and see what the eLECTIONS voters are thinking all around the country.


The set up screens at the beginning of the game are where players define their candidate. After choosing a name and a political party, players then select their candidate's position on the issues. In the virtual world of eLECTIONS there are only ten (10) popular issues. Players choose five (5) to be the basis of their campaign and can declare up to three (3) of those to be their key issues which will be emphasized on the campaign trail.

Players can play against an opponent or let the computer play the role of the other candidate. If the Third Party Candidate option is selected, the computer plays that role too.

The choice of political party only affects the playing piece and color coding. Players define the candidate's position on the issues. The computer randomly chooses issues for the computer controlled candidates, if any.


After players have defined their candidates, the computer runs a number of set-up simulations based on the issues the player (or players) have chosen and chooses the one that offers the closest race.

The state's positions on each of the issues are randomly generated. The states may or may not reflect the liberal or conservative positions that are found in real life. So do not make any assumptions. Read how the Virtual Polling system works to study the political landscape.


As you campaign through the states you are building the groundwork for the general election and the electoral votes you will receive. During your turn, at the bottom of the screen, you will see a running tally of your bankroll, your current position in the polls and the number of electoral votes your candidate would definitely win if the election were held at that time. Those numbers change as the game goes on. This electoral vote tally is only a guide to how well your candidate is doing at any point in the game and the actual electoral votes are not determined until the election at the end of the game.


The heart of the eLECTIONS game engine is the virtual polling system. Click on the "View Polling Map" button at the bottom of the screen to activate the system and see how the voters in each state are responding to the candidate. The data in eLECTIONS is alive and responds to each action players take in the course of the game.

To see how a candidate is doing, simply roll the cursor over a state. All the data on the eLECTIONS voters in that state is displayed on the right side of the screen. The top of the display is a series of bars that show how each candidate is doing in the polls in that state. Below that, the positions that the state's eLECTIONS voters have chosen on the issues are shown. Next to each issue is a symbolic representation of how each candidate's position compares to the eLECTIONS voters.

Note that voter's minds can change! Whenever a candidate campaigns in a state, the voters' opinions change slightly as they respond to the candidate's campaigning. Also, each of the choices a player makes during the game affects voters' opinions.


The eLECTIONS game provides players with a virtual host: George Washington. He gives important tutorial information, commentary on players' decisions, and directs players to interesting and informative content. Whenever there is a LEARN MORE button below the host, players can click on it to go directly to screens filled with information and video shorts provided by CNN Student News, History^TM, and C-SPAN.

The virtual host can run in a number of different modes. Visit Settings and Options to change the sound settings or to turn portions of the virtual host commentary on or off.


Each turn cycle consists of 5 basic events. After spinning the wheel to find out how many game squares a player's playing piece advances, each player's turn steps through the following sequence:

• Game Squares - Play out the game square landed on
• Campaign Travel - Choose states to campaign in this turn cycle
• Fundraisers - Choose a fundraiser to raise additional campaign money
• Campaign Spending - Adjust campaign spending
• Dollar Distribution - background campaign activities

The opponent then goes through the same sequence. If there are any computer controlled candidates, the computer will play out their turn and display the outcomes.

Game Square

There are 5 different game square types:

1. Breaking News
2. Lucky Break
3. Bad Luck
4. Skeletons in the Closet
5. Candidate Debate

Upon landing on a particular game square, a card from the appropriate stack will fly up to the screen. The card will present the player with a description of the related event and a series of options for dealing with it. Choose carefully! Remember the positions chosen on the issues, the five (5) issues chosen on which to campaign, and the three (3) chosen as the key issues. Be careful not to contradict the chosen issue position! Players can refer to the lower right of the screen to see a recap of the issue position chosen for the campaign.

Campaign Travel

This is one of the biggest challenges! Each state has a number of Electoral College delegates a player can win if that state is won. It is not as simple as just choosing the states with the most electoral votes, though. Players need to determine in which states they have an advantage and in which states they are behind. Remember that traveling to a state influences the voters in that state. Even if a player is behind in a state, they could still win it over by campaigning there. Of course the opposing player gets a chance to campaign during their turn, too, and may go after the same states. Refer to Advanced Strategy on the Tips and Help menu for a detailed description of how this works and strategies that might be considered when making campaign decisions.

Fundraisers

During each turn cycle players can choose one of three (3) possible fundraisers. Read them carefully and decide which would be best for the candidate. There is more to it than just choosing the option that raises the most money! The eLECTIONS voters pay attention to who candidates are getting money from, and the contributors are paying attention to the positions candidates have taken on the various issues!

Campaign Spending

This is a simple bar that allows players to decide to spend aggressively on their campaign or play it safe--saving their money for later in the campaign. The more money spent though, the more effective are the campaign activities. Moving the slider along the bar lets a player adjust the percentage of funds to spend during a turn. Remember that in each turn cycle new money will be coming in!

Dollar Distribution

In addition to the money raised in each fundraiser, there are dollars raised by background campaign activities. Each player gets a portion of these funds with each turn cycle, based on their current polling status. The higher a player is in the polls that turn, the higher their percentage of the available funds they receive that turn.

Milestone Events

As players move along the game board they will pass the major milestones of the election process: Players will declare candidacy, then will pass through three (3) sets of Primary Elections, then will attend their party convention, and finally reach Election Day.









Election Day

When all players reach the end of the game, the Election Day simulation is run. The polls open and close in the each time zone across the United States and election results will begin streaming in! Finally the eLECTIONS voters make their choice for the next President of the United States!

Good luck!