THE 2016 ACT election race might not have started yet, but anyone with a hope of winning has to be sidling towards the starting line about now.

With the Legislative Assembly expanding from 17 to 25 seats at the coming election it is the best time to run since the birth of the London Circuit Soviet in 1989.

However, for every one of the lucky 25 who’ll win a seat there will be many more unsuccessful candidates.

The major parties will need a full slate of at least 25 candidates. Minor parties that want to seem credible will also need 25 candidates.

Even fringe groups are going to need rosters of five or 10 candidates.

This means lots of Canberrans, myself included, are being approached to run next year.

Prospective candidates would do well to remember that they can serve the would-be Machiavellis well without ever coming close to winning.

Front parties and candidates are fired like bullets at the enemy in this type of campaign.

If a single-issue zealot can chip a few hundred first-preference votes from an otherwise viable candidate, the viable one might miss out on election in the froth of preference allocation.

The important thing to remember is that in most of the five five-member seats the breakdown is going to be two Labor, two Liberal, and one other.

The Greens are a good shot to take many of those others. The election will turn on electorates where the major parties can manage to take three seats.

Much of the excitement will be which candidates from the major parties manage to do down the other candidates from their own tribe.

Under the new allocation, outer-suburban regions are going to have massively increased representation.

Minor party organisers talk openly about, and bank on, “candidate fever”.

Once a well-meaning citizen signs up and agrees to run they enter a weird little bubble.

Almost everyone they talk to tells them they’ve got their vote! Friends and family won’t tell them the honest truth, the party machine certainly won’t.

Convinced of the invincibility of their campaign the well-intentioned citizen hurtles down range to emerge a few months later with a few hundred votes, some war stories, a bit of career damage, but otherwise generally unharmed.

The question prospective candidates need to ask themselves when the party people come knocking looking for candidates is “how much support are you going to give me?”

A serious candidate, rather than just a bullet, is going to need some things.

They’re going to need someone to pay them a living wage while they campaign for months (sinecure consultancies or a job in the party seem best), a campaign manager, a team of volunteers, and an advertising budget they have some input into.

It the party machinery isn’t willing or able to offer that much then you, dear reader, are just a bullet, valued only for the damage you might inflict as you are consumed.

That’s no reason not to join the pageant of democracy, just to do it with eyes open.