They can take some representatives with them, though if the towns are contested they will have to also bring representatives of whoever contests them if they want to come. And they can do magic demos to skeptics. They can absolutely make ballots!

... If they tell the occupying powers about the referendum, there will be retaliatory raids on any village that votes to secede.

Well, then it's convenient that they'll defend anyone who joins up, right? That takes effect immediately.

It doesn't take them time to count the votes?

It takes like... a couple seconds? It's done with a lot of magic and technology.

... Wow.

So. Instantly teleport in representatives of Ljudizem and Vanda Nosseo and the occupying powers, with ballots; let everyone fill out ballots, instantly teleport out, and just which of these villages are they prepared to do it in? The historical borders of Ljudizem are these, the borders of the puppet state are these, and their armies are here. Probably. They might have moved.

Okay! Does the other side of the equation here have anything to say about the matter?

Which other side of the equation? There are three... no, four... five... countries that Ljudizem has claims on.

- The Kingdom of Desnau was last seen ordering the Vandans Nossëo who visited it shot for lese-majesty, and having failed to shoot, hang, boil and disintegrate the Limboite representative, went with exile, and it is still not accepting ambassadors.

- The Duchy of Havralt is insulted to be asked and thinks that Ljudizem does not have a claim on its lands and is EXTREMELY OFFENDED at Vanda Nosseo, they thought Vanda Nosseo protected small countries.

- The Kingdom of Gerontmarkh (having had some time to communicate with the king) wishes to point out that His Majesty Marek Gerontmarkhen was legally crowned King of all Ljudizem by the assembly and that Dinot is a usurper and a renegade and an oathbreaker and a heretic and probably has sex with goats, and if Dinot's followers want to flee into Vanda Nosseo they can run all they like but Marek is the legitimate king of Ljudizem and his army is going to take it.

- The Empire of Vzhoudoun is not capable of responding within a single day to matters of great import, but will eventually say that the Emperor, crowned by Heaven, is not subject to any mortal ruler, and that His subjects must humbly obey His commands, regardless of their personal feelings on the matter. The border with Ljudizem is there, the legitimate king of Ljudizem is Marek Gerontmarkhen, that is all good day.

- The Dominion of Simolya still has the Vandan Nossëo ambassadors who visited it in jail. Are they sending new people over, or what?

No, the ones in jail are receiving communiques and asking them to be conveyed to whom it may concern. If nobody else wants to legitimize the proceedings with a representative, they will proceed with the votes! Everybody gets to decide as what state headed by whom they wish to be considered part of for this purpose and whether that state should join Vanda Nossëo or not.

Havralt will legitimize the proceedings once they realize that Vanda Nosseo is serious, but only because they've seen enough casual-demonstrations-of-superpowers to make them realize there's a new superpower in town, and they're real unhappy.

Gerontmarkh wishes to protest that this is utterly unreasonably and a violation of international law and surely we can slow down and discuss this instead of trying to feed half their country to a usurper!

Vzhoudoun... maybe if they spend a few weeks petitioning they'll get further, but definitely not faster than that.

It is quite possible that the King of Simolya does not know that he's been asked for a representative, since the jailers have no interest in sending things up. No further comment on this proposal is being delivered, certainly.

... Wait, how are they handling property? There's lots of disputed land in the relevant villages. Do the villages vote on where they want to be, or is it just that if more than 51% of the people say Ljudizem they get Ljudizem?

(Ljudizem's preferred method is that each region - here's the maps - votes collectively if it wants to secede and join Ljudizem, but it is certainly conceivable that their regions may be slightly gerrymandered.)

Gerontmarkh is welcome to explain the international law in question?

Vanda Nossëo would rather do this on a town- or village- level rather than a regional one; if a town wants to be part of Ljudizem, or declare independence and VN membership, or be a part of some other country, or join the Nongeographical Society, or if they have an idea of their own, Vanda Nossëo will support their self-determination in this regard. Though they wouldn't really recommend declaring independence and not membership, considering.

Right. So, this is the important bit, countries have recognized territory, and territory is not just allowed to secede. Secession is an act of war against the country you're seceding from, and therefore on all their allies.

Also, all the countries except a few puppet states installed by the Traitor Admiral recognize Marek as the legitimate king of Ljudizem, really, you can ask them.

Ljudizem thinks this sounds impossible to defend. What if towns end up surrounded by the enemy?

(Quite early in this census process, a young woman arrives at the Havralt shop/bus station in a black uniform with a golden bracer on her wrist, mostly concealed by her sleeve. She has impeccable posture and a rifle that looks like it belongs to a museum and looks like she hasn't slept in decades. What magic artifacts / high-tech gear from another universe have they got for sale?)

They've got healing doodads and air conditioners and kitchen appliances and sewing machines and contraceptives and an Allspeak wand and laundry thingamabobs and robot vacuum cleaners!

Allspeak wand is useful, what's the price?

Anything for long distance communication?

She can get an allspeak installation (though not the wand) for a story or a song!

There isn't internet coverage over most of the planet yet, but she can get a phone anyway if she wants. State of the art is chiplock installation but they can't do that here, she'd have to go to Vanda Nossëo and pay actual money for it.

What are the options for creating Internet coverage or for alternate long-distance communication methods, if there are any?

If she's planning to stay near areas that have Vanda Nossëo storefronts and bus stations, she can get a technological hotspot for a story that'll piggyback on that. If she wants to range farther than that she'd need a crystal ball, and those are magic and somewhat scarce and therefore cost actual money when purchased in Vanda Nossëo proper. They can special-order walkie-talkies or radio transmitters but those aren't standard inclusions because they don't come with tutorials on their own use the way computers can.

When she speaks it's clipped and directly to the point.

Her country doesn't have a bus station. What is there that is worth actual money to Vanda Nosseo. How do radios work and how long does the special order take. Do they do bulk rates. How do they define stories.

The special order can be there in minutes if she's in a hurry and once there's radios in stock at all they won't cost more than anything else in the shop. A tutorial in how to use them will be an extra story, it's not part of standard retail-envoy training. People in Vanda Nossëo who don't live solely off basic income are often researchers, entertainers, charity-legwork-doers, service workers of various types, logistics managers, engineers... it's pretty unusual for people from new nonmagical preindustrial societies to be able to make much of an economic splash right away, but there are museums that will take authentic preindustrial souvenirs if faster people from this planet haven't saturated demand already and some who will do longer-form story-collection type things for monetary consideration. A story is an anecdote or narrative which can be true, embellished, or wholly fictional, customer's choice, and is generally about a paragraph long at least.

She is in a hurry. She'll pay for the tutorial.

She was given her hero crest when she managed her first forty-mile rough-terrain march in two days. She brought a machete and a water bottle and made it to Mordgart two hours after sunset and left the next morning an hour before dawn and made it back the next day forty minutes before midnight. She was twelve. Is this enough of a story or do they want her to continue.

That's one, but she seems like she wants more stuff than one thing.

Yes.

But she'll buy an explanation of how radios work first and then decide how many radios she needs.

Okay. They will dig up someone who knows how to use radios and he'll pop in to teach her.