"...huh. I guess that's probably administratively straightforward on this tech base at least."

"Do you think something else would be better?"

"Well, it depends on what you're trying to accomplish, and who you think knows the most about how to accomplish it. Stuff I've seen in speculative fiction ranges all over the place where they do anything with it besides make it just like how real caste-weighted votes are. Votes weighted in favor of people who are older. Votes favoring people who have fewer children. Votes favoring people with more education, though I think that was poking fun at the imperial polymath paradigm."

"My primary goal with the voting rule was to ensure as much buy-in from people in Kenton as possible - I think weighing towards people in specific groups would largely work against that goal?"

"Well, you could make it gradual with length of residency, instead of a cutoff at one year. I don't have strong opinions on this, I don't know what people here have tried or what the voters expect or anything, it just stood out to me."

"We've only had the one election so far after I convinced people to give it a try and they responded by electing me, which I should really not have found as surprising as I did."

"What were they doing before?"

"We didn't have a mayor before."

"...right, so, who was doing all the things that you now as mayor do?"

"I was."

"Ah, so this was just a formalization."

"Well, I was hoping to get someone else I could answer to but instead they just elected me."

"Empirically nobody else wanted the job as much as you did, if you were doing it anyway."

"I guess, yeah. I do enjoy it, I just wish I didn't have to make so many decisions on my own."

"Then you need to hire people. Elect a vice-mayor or something."

"I'm not aware of anyone who'd both want to do that and be a good fit, I think."

"You're the one who implemented democracy, and sometimes that has the effect that if you hold an election for a position that needs filling, only people you don't think would be a good fit will run."

"Yeah, though nobody really ran for mayor, so I'm not sure if deputy mayor would be different."

"I presume I'm not eligible."

"Well, you'd have to live here a year if we were having elections - would you be interested?"

"Maybe. It'd be more interesting than dishes and laundry, I bet."

"I expect so - I don't actually need to hold an election to appoint someone my deputy mayor given that the position doesn't exist yet."

"I think I would need to be trained in the responsibilities of the position since I'm new to the... planet, let alone the town."

"And we would need to figure out what exactly those responsibilities were."

"I'd expect it to be spillover from your own job, which you could accordingly allow to balloon beyond your solo capacity. And covering for you if you were sick or double booked."