Elections
There are 4 political offices in the game, all determined in an election. Each colonist at a colony counts as a vote in the election. Here are the offices and the scope of their office:
Mayor: Individual Colony
Governor: Planet
Senator: System
Colonial President: All colonized systems
For the most part each role allows for the naming of their territory (colonies, planets, systems) with the following added duties:
Senators can place gates in their systems (that still need to actually be built)
The Colonial President needs to approve any gate connecting directly to the core.
The Political Arena
Any open politically-related information involving players and the election process are discussed in the Politics forum:
http://forum.thespacegame.com/viewforum.php?f=11
Anything further then that is created mainly by us the community. Examples of community added politics are discussions on gate projects, proposals to Jam for elections and/or procedural changes, and many other forms of role-played (RP) politics. The basic premise is that all discussion be 'in character' of the political representative your in-game character reflects. When posting you do not post as a person playing a game or talk about game mechanics. If there is a bug, issue, or feature that affects your role play, try to explain the situation as a politician.
In practice:
"I want to gate System X to Vulcan"
becomes:
"I, Senator Hubes of System X would like to propose a gate to link the good people of System X to Vulcan...etc, etc, other political motivation, blah blah"