The GTA Online "New Day" roleplay server held its first state election and, as you can probably already guess, it didn't go so well.
As reported by Polygon, the New Day server tends to deal with more serious stories and roleplays, rather than the more outlandish ones you can expect to see in GTA. That meant that a state election was the perfect type of action for the server.
The two candidates were Charlie Bradstock and Andrew McKinley, with Bradstock looking to sell more merchandise and McKinley wanting to improve the security and law of the area. Being elected governor would allow the player to decide on the policies and laws that can be brought into the server, which makes it a big position in a serious server like New Day.
Before the elections could even begin, Bradstock was arrested on charges of battery, which was captured by an in-game reporter, Travis Ray. Bradstock served his time, which led to an in-game roleplayed police conference, and the mock Twitter app in the game (yes, this server even has fake Twitter) blowing up with cries to "#freeBradstock". This then led to roleplayed protests, as Bradstock proved the claims false, and responses from both sides over the whole ordeal.
False charges or not, it was all too late for the merchandiser though, as the votes were counted and McKinley won fair and square. Bradstock is now moving on to new things, whilst McKinley rules as the Governor of New Day's Los Santos. It could have gone much worse, but it wasn't exactly a smooth debate.
The important thing to remember in all of this is that none of these events were planned whatsoever, and the roleplaying server just rallied around each individual event and built upon it.
For those of you who are completely lost at all of this, GTA Online has massively taken off over the past year thanks to these roleplay servers. If nothing else, all of this should serve to show just how seriously people take these servers and how much work goes into them.