User:Giraffer/Administrator election ELI5

This is a basic ELI5 guide to the ongoing administrator elections.

Important differences from RfA

You may only discuss the candidates on their nomination pages between October 22nd and October 24th. You can ask them questions on their talk page, but their election page can only edited during the two-day discussion phase.
This is vote, not a consensus discussion. Candidates who recieve above 70% will become administrators. Candidates who do not will not be granted adminship. There are no cratchats.
The requirements to vote are different between here and RfA. RfA requires you to be extended confirmed; admin elections do not. The suffrage requirements are listed on the elections page.
Voting takes place on SecurePoll, rather than on-wiki. On SecurePoll, nobody, not even the scrutineers, can see how you voted.
There is a nice table at the bottom of the election page summarizing this.

RfA, the standard (and until now, only) way to request adminship, recently underwent a reform RfC with the goal of changing things so try to increase the number of candidates running.
One of the proposals made at the reform RfC was to trial a new way of earning adminship, by secret ballot, and with a vote rather than a consensus discussion (as RfA is). It passed, and here we are.
The idea behind the administrator elections proposal was to avoid some of the conflict that can arise from RfA !votes, and to allow candidates to run for adminship at the same time as someone else.^[1]

There are three stages to this election, taking place during three seperate periods:
1. Call for candidates: October 8–14
2. Discussion: October 22–24
3. Voting: October 25–31
During the call for candidates, candidates can create a nomination page (basically an RfA page without the !voting sections) and get nominated. They then get added to a list of candidates. Nothing really happens for the candidates or voters until the discussion phase. Discussion on the candidates' nomination pages will not begin until the discussion phase, so that all candidates recieve the same level of questioning and scrutiny, etc.
During the discussion phase, things function like a regular RfA, just without !voting. You can leave comments and questions for the candidates on their respective nomination pages. This is the only period to discuss the candidate on their nomination page. Once voting begins, the candidate pages will be closed, and no further comments should be posted there.
During the voting phase, voters can cast their ballots on SecurePoll to support, neutral, or oppose each candidate. This is not like an ArbCom election in that we do not have a limited number of places to fill. We can elect any number of admins, so if you believe all candidates should be administrators, support them all. SecurePoll ballots are secret, and the contents of your vote will not be known to anyone, including the scrutineers.

You can discuss the candidates on their candidate pages from October 22nd to October 24th. You can't discuss them there after then, but you can ask them questions on their talk page.
You can then vote on the candidates from October 25th to October 31st, on SecurePoll.
This election is a one-off. Once it is over, an RfC will be held to decide whether to make it a regular event, or to discontinue it.

^ While there is nothing stopping candidates from running RfAs at the same time, in practice it is rare for candidates to start their RfA at the same time as someone else; concurrent or overlapping runs are mostly coincidental.