4 ideas
The world is divided into 'centenals' of roughly 100,000 people. Each one votes for any government on a global menu, from corporate brands to ideological parties, so neighboring districts can live under different governments. Choosing your laws becomes a matter of voting, or moving a few blocks, rather than emigrating, which turns citizens into consumers of governance and governments into competing providers.
The system depends on a single global body, Information, to supply verified data, annotate candidates' claims, and run the election. That makes it the single point of failure for legitimacy. Whoever can influence, infiltrate, or discredit it can shape outcomes more cheaply than by winning voters. Fact-checking and transparency tools do not stop manipulation, because people still act on narrative, framing, and what they choose to believe.
The government that wins the most centenals worldwide takes the Supermajority, which carries extra global powers. As a result, parties compete for the number of districts rather than the number of people served. They pour resources into marginal centenals, split and brand themselves to capture blocks, and a winning incumbent can use its advantage to entrench itself across cycles. Read any election through its scoring rule, because the unit that gets counted is the unit that gets courted.
In the book's third global election, the corporate-backed Heritage party is trying to keep the Supermajority it has held for two decade-long terms. Ken, a campaign operative for the reformist Policy1st, and Mishima, an agent of Information, uncover coordinated sabotage, disinformation, and violence aimed at swinging close centenals. The contested vote leaves Information to decide whether to certify a tainted result, showing how an engineered system for fair elections can still be gamed at its seams.