The rule, exactly. Before an election each citizen chooses: to vote — or to take a payment and not vote in that election. The payment is a percentage of the median income, set by referendum; there is no fixed sum. One ballot is one vote, with no multiplier in the count; the vote is amplified only in that each ballot's share grows as others step out. The budget pays under law; a candidate never pays. Only a referendum of all citizens — simple majority, no quorum — introduces, changes or repeals the rule.
The protocol has been introduced nowhere and no pilot has been run: shares, turnout and outcome figures in the chapters are estimates, and the protocol promises nobody an election victory. If a chapter says otherwise, Exact Answers and the Charter are correct. For a candidate: ten questions and ten steps. For a citizen, a mayor, a finance officer, a donor, a journalist, a scholar, a lawyer: answers by role. Everything in force in one file: llms-full.txt.
3. The Data Timeline and the Symmetry of Reporting¶
Chapter: 01 File version: v2 (universalised) Date: 2026-06-11 · universalised 2026-09-15 Source: v6.53 §6, §7
How to read this chapter (note of 02.10.2026). The text contains wording that is easy to misread: the efficiency bonus has been removed. The exact-answers sheet 1d and the charter 048m are in force.
3.1. The sequence of steps¶
The timeline is the same for any jurisdiction; only the national reporting deadlines and the election date change.
| Step | Timing | Who |
|---|---|---|
| Employers file wage reports | Per the national calendar, for the prior year | Employers → statistical authority |
| The authority aggregates the median by territory | After collection | Statistical authority |
| The jurisdiction computes the dividend | After the median is published | Administration |
| The dividend amount is published | 30 days before the election | Jurisdiction |
| A/B declaration window | 30–5 days before the election (a default, see 4.1) | Citizens |
| Base payment (D_base) | 1 day before the election | Treasury → bank |
| Election | Day X | — |
| Budget audit | +6 months | Independent auditor |
| Bonus payment (B) | After the audit | Treasury → bank |
In existing systems the data lag runs to several months. It is worth understanding what that lag consists of: aggregating a median by territory takes seconds in technical terms (a query against a database that already exists). Everything else is slack for bureaucratic procedure.
The protocol works even with a lag of several months: the median moves slowly, and a three-year average corrected for inflation smooths the remainder. Acceleration is a desirable consequence, not a condition of launch.
3.2. The fundamental asymmetry: citizen vs state¶
Existing systems are almost universally asymmetric.
What is required of the citizen: file by a hard deadline; a penalty for every day late; criminal liability for failing to file; accuracy down to the last unit of currency; document retention for years.
What is required of the state in reporting to the citizen: a publication deadline is usually not set at all; there is no penalty for being late; the format is discretionary; the accuracy is revisable.
A shareholder in a listed company knows more about their investment than a citizen knows about their taxes — because the market regulator obliges the company to report quarterly, while the jurisdiction is obliged to report never.
AB-EXIT restores SYMMETRY: the state is obliged to give every citizen a specific number (the dividend), by a specific date, at a specific accuracy. It is the first obligation of its kind — with a date, a figure and an addressee.
3.3. A side effect: pressure to modernise statistics¶
State data-collection systems are slow not because modernisation is impossible but because nobody demands it. There is simply no interested party: no citizen has a personal reason to push for the median to be published three months earlier.
AB-EXIT creates the first mass incentive. Millions of citizens whose payment depends on publication speed become a stakeholder. That pulls along side reforms which several countries have already implemented and which serve as the model: pre-filled tax returns (Estonia, Denmark, Sweden — filing in minutes rather than hours), automated auditing, fast refunds, public transparency of incomes by territory.
The protocol does not require such modernisation in order to launch. It creates the pressure that leads to it.
Country-specific implementation: American deadlines, the composition of the blocking groups and the achievable acceleration are covered in §48c.