I think we're mixing up terminology a bit here. I find myself repeatedly emphasizing a fact that (understandably) does not seem to have sunk in for most South Pacificans: the Delegate election already occurs a few months before the start of the new Delegate's official term.

Delegate terms, according to the Elections Act, begin at a Delegate-elect's inauguration upon their ascension to the in-game delegacy and end when they depart the in-game delegacy. Before achieving the most endorsements (= inauguration), they have zero power other than a duty to endotart -- but they are not Delegate and they have not yet begun their term. Similarly, the incumbent Delegate -- that is, the one holding the most endorsements -- remains Delegate even after the Delegate election happens to pick their successor. They are no less the official Delegate of the region the day after elections as they were the day before, and the clock is still ticking on their term. The incumbent Delegate's term does not end until they are actually replaced in the in-game seat.

Beepee became Delegate four days ago. I don't mean that in just the in-game sense. I mean before Monday, he was just some guy we selected a few months ago. We might have called him "Delegate-elect" out of convenience, but his term had not yet begun. Everywhere -- on gameside, on the forums, on Discord -- we were still legally living in the Reign of the Admiral General Stewie G., whose responsibilities, powers, and status were exactly the same as they were before the election began. There was no "transition period" during which Amerion's term had ended, or Beepee and Amerion were sharing power, or anything: Amerion's term was still going on, and Beepee's only began on Monday.

So, W&S and HS and others have thrown out the idea of, supposedly, "mov[ing] the date of the election up 1-2 months from the start of the new Delegate's term ... In that intervening time, whoever is then elected Delegate can endo-tart their way up to almost where the outgoing Delegate is, and then SPSF/allied militaries can be brought in when the term officially starts to finish the transition". If you've been following, this is exactly what happens already. When was the date of this past election, for example? January 1, and it concluded a few weeks later, in late January. When was the start of Beepee's term? March 21. The date of the election was located almost exactly 2 months before the start of the new Delegate's term... and in that intervening time, the person elected to be the next Delegate "endo-tarted their way up to almost where the outgoing Delegate [was], and then SPSF/allied militaries [were] brought in when the term officially started to finish the transition". Voilà -- it already works like this!

The only difference at all between what I imagine they're thinking of and what currently happens is that the length of time between the election and the beginning of the term is currently dynamic, lasting exactly as long as it takes for the elected person to reach the in-game Delegacy. What they're thinking of, I imagine, would involve setting a specific length of time after each election -- say, exactly 50 days -- after which the term would commence. But since it actually can take widely varying lengths of time for an elected person to reach the in-game Delegacy, a specific mandated period would be unwieldy and cause unnecessary confusion. (Think: "It's been only 20 days, and I've already managed to reach the delegacy! Yay, now I'm finally dele-- oh, wait, there's actually a whole 30 days left until I'm allowed to be delegate, I guess I just have to hang out here at ten endorsements below the delegate for another month...".)

Penguin's idea -- putting a gap of a month or so in between nominations and voting, or even between the forum voting round and the gameside voting round, to allow candidates to endo-tart -- is intriguing, and could certainly help. That's a separate thing. But "moving the date of the election up 1-2 months from the start of the new Delegate's term" is not an "alternate model", because that is literally what we already do. There's nothing you could change about our system in order to implement that "model" (other than the dynamic vs. static date thing, which really is not the change you're after).