Proposed Amendment

[Bromo Ivory]

I have given this a fair bit of thought, and I believe the "elimination" option on voting is not a law that benefits CDS. It has shown to be polarizing when used, and as shown exhaustively by Jon, to be too subject to "gaming." I believe the best RA is when each and every member has some responsibility to a large majority of citizens and elimination will guarantee a polarization and limitation of minority parties and therefore the number of viewpoints. Therefore, I believe, it is a mistake to continue to have this law.

I have submitted this via notecard as a private citizen to Beathan Vale who I believe is LRA with Brian's resignation.

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Preamble: We have seen the divisive way in which "elimination" was used in the election of the RA. A small minority of voters chose not to rank other factions, and were denounced. Also a painstaking analysis done by Jon Seattle, it has convinced me, that this reform is not a good one, and the option to not rank factions must be eliminated to be as inclusive of ideas and creativity as possible.

The benefit of the ranking system as before, is to allow minority party views to participate in government, reduce the "gaming" of the system, and to guarantee a constituency of each RA member and faction from a wide variety of the citizen and therefore tend to moderate the politics.

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Section 2 - currently:

Representative seats are chosen by means of the Sainte-Laguë? method using scores generated by Borda-count ranked votes cast by citizens. There will also be the option to not rank a faction; this will act the same way as a last place vote in the Borda count. The citizens will also rank the list of candidates from their first pick faction to serve on the RA.

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Proposed new wording:

Representative seats are chosen by means of the Sainte-Laguë? method using scores generated by Borda-count ranked votes cast by citizens. The citizens will also rank the list of candidates from their first pick faction to serve on the RA.

[Beathan]

Bromo --

I am inclined to agree that our faction elimination experiment has not been a good one. I will support this proposal to return to the original way of voting -- which worked well and in an inspired way.

However, I don't think that I am the LRA. I am not sure that there is an LRA at the moment. I also think that no member of the RA wants the job -- but I might be wrong about that.

Beathan

[Patroklus Murakami]

I think that further reform of our electoral system is clearly necessary. The option to eliminate other factions was used systematically by the NuCARE faction in the previous election to boost their vote - the evidence for that is overwhelming now. The aftermath has not been pretty. You can trace all of our current problems back to the use of that highly divisive tactic - it polarised opinion between the factions and made many of us feel cheated when the evidence emerged. It has driven NuCARE representatives and factions supporters into a hysterical defence of their actions in public even though the prime movers admit the tactic in private an feel quite justified in their actions.

But the principle of allowing voters to vote "No" to a faction is still the right one. We should reform our system so that citizens have the option to withhold their vote from a faction they seriously disagree with without that effectively giving them a stronger vote (as our current system does). There are various modifications to the Borda count method which have been developed in real world elections to tackle this problem. Jon has chapter and verse on that.

[Bromo Ivory]

I think that further reform of our electoral system is clearly necessary. The option to eliminate other factions was used systematically by the NuCARE faction in the previous election to boost their vote - the evidence for that is overwhelming now. The aftermath has not been pretty. You can trace all of our current problems back to the use of that highly divisive tactic - it polarised opinion between the factions and made many of us feel cheated when the evidence emerged. It has driven NuCARE representatives and factions supporters into a hysterical defence of their actions in public even though the prime movers admit the tactic in private an feel quite justified in their actions.

But the principle of allowing voters to vote "No" to a faction is still the right one. We should reform our system so that citizens have the option to withhold their vote from a faction they seriously disagree with without that effectively giving them a stronger vote (as our current system does). There are various modifications to the Borda count method which have been developed in real world elections to tackle this problem. Jon has chapter and verse on that.

Pat no need to blast nuCARE - I did not eliminate anyone and was not aware of anyone "systematically" doing anything.

But regardfless of your opinion of what happened, the polarization, extra rancor and bad feelings were very real, and to me, this seems like an experiment that did not work.

Regardless, this was done as an experiment, and it failed. So we ought to reverse it.

[Beathan]

Bromo --

You are exactly right on this point.

Your proposal is on the agenda this Sunday. I will support it, and I hope it will pass.

Beathan

[Sonja Strom]

It is amazing how big of an issue this has become, being such a relatively small change in our electoral system. I must admit I am not sure what is best to do about it, and can see both sides of "To keep or not to keep..."

Personally I do not see how this change has made the RA more polarized. In my view the discussion about this issue has been overly extravagant, which possibly has increased some tension between the individuals involved in the discussion - some of whom are in the RA and some of whom are outside the RA. These discussions have been held between those individuals, however, not between factions in the RA.

In this Forum, most of these discussions took place here: http://forums.slcds.info/viewtopic.php?f=1&t=1585
Nearly everything I could say about this issue has already been said in that thread, but I would like to make a few points here in order to explain my perspective.

It has been found that in the last election, party-elimination from the ballot did not alter the distribution of seats in the RA at all.
Of course in future it could, which is really the only reason why it would have any validity in terms of voting.

One reason why not to allow faction-elimination in voting is the possibility that it could be dangerous to the CDS. This is worthy of consideration, because it seems possible that two stronger parties could convince enough voters to eliminate all other parties from the ballot, resulting in a non-inclusive, winner-takes-all, two-party system.
This would upset me because in such a system the losers would become disenfranchised from government leadership, and, well, losers.

However, I also believe there are a few reasons why this possibility would not become reality.
1) Most voters do not want only one party in control of everything, but want some kind of mixture they feel represents them well.
2) Even most people who are very active in the parties want to give some support to other parties closer to theirs in perspective than the parties they do not like so well. This is mostly because they would rather have a seat that is not theirs go to a more-friendly party than to a less-friendly party.
3) There can always be a "backlash" effect among the voters, to not give support to a party they feel is being unfair to other parties.

There are also a couple of reasons why party-elimination can be a very good thing:
1) It allows voters to have more say in which party(ies) they want to give their votes, making their determination more accurately reflect what they want.
2) It helps to keep unpopular parties from having near-automatic inclusion in the government simply for getting onto the ballot.

Taking all of these points into consideration, for now I am in favor of keeping the electoral system the way it is.

[Cindy Ecksol]

It is amazing how big of an issue this has become, being such a relatively small change in our electoral system. I must admit I am not sure what is best to do about it, and can see both sides of "To keep or not to keep..."

Taking all of these points into consideration, for now I am in favor of keeping the electoral system the way it is.

Thanks, Sonja. This is the most balanced analysis of the system I've yet seen in any discussion.

I'll also emphasize, as Sonja outlines, that most of the perceived problems have been exactly that: perceived, not real. And, I might add, those negative perceptions have been constantly fanned into flame by some who seem to have a vested interest in ongoing turmoil and feuds. It's really getting boring. Is it any wonder that no one is willing to take on the LRA role?

Cindy

[Beathan]

Sonja --

I hope that you will change your mind and support Bromo's amendment.

First, I should point out that I voted for faction elimination last term. I regret doing so. In fact, there is nothing I have done in the CDS that I regret more than that vote.

Faction elimination has caused serious problems in our electoral system, and have caused serious bad feelings in our community.

The current conflict in the RA and CDS can be traced directly to the faction elimination rule. In the last election, there were allegations that NuCARE used the rule tactically to give their members' votes greater weight. This revelation was made by a CSDF election official -- and NuCARE then challenged the right of the official to comment on the election. This issue, more than anything else, has been the spark point for the conflagration between NuCARE and the CSDF that has caused so many problems with term.

However, as Jon has pointed out in his mathematical voting analysis, there is an even more serious problem with the faction elimination rule -- it imbalances elections by changing the relative weight of individual votes. Voter who eliminate other factions have their votes count more the more factions they eliminate. This means that single party voters are more enfranchised than other citizens. I think that this is a possible UDHR issue. That is, the faction elimination rule may be unConstitutional.

I was not aware of this mathematical imbalance when I supported the proposal. It is critical that all CDS citizens have equal voting rights -- and that no citizen is penalized for supporting more than one faction. The best and easiest way to balance an election is to have all voters vote the same way. We should either have single faction voting -- or multi-faction voting. The unholy hybrid system that is created by the faction elimination rule is not working and not workable.

Further, it is clear that the rule allows parties to game the system. I agree with your analysis that the last election shows no signs of any party changing the outcome by gaming the system. However, now that the genie is out of the bottle, it will happen -- and will happen in all future votes. This is to be avoided. The more factions game the system by collectively eliminating all other factions -- the more our community will become polarized and the more members of factions will harbor and act from bad feelings about the other factions. We have too much of that now. We need to act to reduce bad feelings by removing anything that tends to produce it -- and the faction elimination rule does so.

Beathan

[Patroklus Murakami]

There are several options open to us at this point:

1. Go back to the electoral system we used to have as Bromo suggests. Beathan has indicated he supports this path. This is probably better than leaving the electoral system unreformed now that we are clearer on how the system can be gamed.
2. Stay as we are. Sonja has said she supports this path. The problem with this option is that we now know how the system can be gamed. The incentive for many more voters at the next general election will be to eliminate some or all of the opposition factions to make their vote 'count' more.
3. Retain the option for voters to eliminate one or more factions but reform the system so that this does not give the eliminators' vote greater strength. This would accommodate Sonja's wish to retain the desirable aspects of our current rules while taking away the incentive to tactically eliminate all opponents for factional advantage. The principle involved here, that voters should not be forced to rank a faction they don't support at all, is the correct one. We shouldn't abandon that now, the right to vote 'No' to a faction is an important one. But it's clear the current system cannot remain unreformed.
4. Do something else entirely!

One last thing - I'm puzzled about the connection between this proposal and the Electoral Committee set up by the RA a few weeks ago. Is there a connection? Surely the RA should consider the report from that committee before jumping one way or another on a constitutional amendment to change our electoral system?

[Bromo Ivory]

One last thing - I'm puzzled about the connection between this proposal and the Electoral Committee set up by the RA a few weeks ago. Is there a connection? Surely the RA should consider the report from that committee before jumping one way or another on a constitutional amendment to change our electoral system?

No connection at all. I proposed this reversal as a private citizen.

I do believe the most prudent path would be to "reset" back to the original system before further reforms are pursued. We know there are no UDHR issues and it is much harder to "game."

[Bromo Ivory]

I'll also emphasize, as Sonja outlines, that most of the perceived problems have been exactly that: perceived, not real. And, I might add, those negative perceptions have been constantly fanned into flame by some who seem to have a vested interest in ongoing turmoil and feuds. It's really getting boring. Is it any wonder that no one is willing to take on the LRA role?

Cindy

Quick analogy to answer your "perception" argument: I have a car with airbags and other safety features. I have never been in an accident. Therefore they aren't needed going forward because I have not been in an accident in the past. (Imperfect analogy - but if you see a possible problem - the past is not a shield against the future)

And - RL is not SL. Any avatar can "leave" at any time for any reason. You options in RL are somewhat limited, since emigration is much more disruptive, expensive and life changing. So a democratic system and a polarizing one can work easily - though even then if it gets to be too much you can get acts of civil and not-so-civil disobedience - though the threshold is much higher.

In SL our biggest issue is going to be Drama and Apathy. I have seen SIMs close because of both (the Dune SIM I absolutely loved closed due to Drama, another looks to close due to apathy) Our system supports a great deal of drama ... so additional polarization is not needed.

Recap:

[recap withdrawn - apologies for offense, none was intended]

What are our incentives?

This is where I think that going back to the old system may have merit. It makes it such that every RA member has a constituency that encompasses almost the entire voting population of CDS - so every RA member knows that they need to try to work for solutions for the entire CDS rather than merely please a core minority group.

With elimination, you are supporting polarization, and while that can work for RL (since the options of leaving a country are quite limited) - in SL it may not work as well since "citizenship" means something a little different - participation and indeed residency is a choice not an accident of birth or through a lengthy process of emigration/immigration.

[Patroklus Murakami]

It seems to me that immediately once the voting results were known there were very large accusations levelled at nuCARE and it escalated into, essentially, lawsuits (which were eventually dropped, and the rhetoric died down). This set the tone for the RA - as CSDF got into a fight with the other factions in the RA (well SP and nuCARE) over the agenda and running meeting that culminated in the CSDF RA members resigning (and even then rumors of some plot to somehow take over CDS outside the reigns of power through starting multiple parties and using this elimination gaming technique on a truly organized scale - only point being that the mistrust continues, not that CSDF would actually do this)

Bromo-
This is misleading and highly tendentious account of events. Rather than trying to fan the flames by spreading further rumours about the CSDF (we resigned as part of a plot to take over? hello?) why don't you focus on the issues Sonja is raising about the advantages of our current system and try to forge a consensus on a way forward?

[Beathan]

A few quick notes --

Pat asks --

One last thing - I'm puzzled about the connection between this proposal and the Electoral Committee set up by the RA a few weeks ago. Is there a connection? Surely the RA should consider the report from that committee before jumping one way or another on a constitutional amendment to change our electoral system?

The electoral reform committee is continuing. For the most part, we have been focusing on the problem of the technical support requirements of the election system raising the possibility of manipulation of the votes (by virtual ballot-stuffing or ballot-losing). Note, there is no evidence that this has ever happened and, given our people, I don't think it ever would (with the current people) -- but observation of the vote in progress by the people who run the election raises the possibility of manipulation of the vote in progress. I think that we have made good progresson this issue -- and we will continue.

We have not addressed the vote elimination rule or the RA size proposal in any serious way. My sense was that there was a fairly universal consensus that the current vote elimination rule was not wanted. This seemed to be the universal consensus of attendees at the electoral commission meetings. The fix is more complicated -- as Pat points out. There is something worthwhile about allowing voters to not put their support (even minimal support) behind a faction they don't like. On the other hand, we need to rebalance the electoral math so that voter's have equal weight regardless of how they vote. This is very complicated -- possibly so complicated that we should not try to retain the faction elimination rule. This has left us with two known alternatives -- 1. return to the borda count system without the faction elimination rule (I personally don't consider this to require people to vote for a party they don't like -- merely to weight preferences; even if a voter actively disliked all factions, they could still weight the parties from most disliked to least disliked) or 2. replacement of our system with a single transferable vote system. I am sure that there are other solutions as well, but they have not been raised.

My position is that the electoral commission will continue its work even if Bromo's amendment passes. There are many other substantive issues involved in CDS elections beyond the faction elimination rule. In fact, I was surprised by Sonja's opposition to the Amendment. Based on my work on the Commission, it seemed that the idea that we should return to our earlier rules was noncontroversial. We can reform the system as easily (or more easily) from an early state than from the current state.

Bromo writes

It seems to me that immediately once the voting results were known there were very large accusations levelled at nuCARE and it escalated into, essentially, lawsuits (which were eventually dropped, and the rhetoric died down). This set the tone for the RA - as CSDF got into a fight with the other factions in the RA (well SP and nuCARE) over the agenda and running meeting that culminated in the CSDF RA members resigning (and even then rumors of some plot to somehow take over CDS outside the reigns of power through starting multiple parties and using this elimination gaming technique on a truly organized scale - only point being that the mistrust continues, not that CSDF would actually do this)

Bromo -- I think that this is unfair to the CSDF and to the SP. First, the CSDF did not get in a fight with the SP. Rather, the CSDF got in a fight with me personally. I am a bit of a maverick -- and it was my independent streak that caused me to break from my own party and challenge the leadership of the CSDF on the RA (which leadership, for the most part, had and has strong support in the SP). Second, I did not just fight with the CSDF. I was involved, with Jon Seattle, in the "rhetorical war" against NuCARE which you referenced in your post. Again, I was out on my own in this -- the SP, as a whole, took a more moderate tone and stayed above the fray.

My involvement in these -- and other past CDS controversies -- is one reason why I think that I would be a very poor LRA (either selected by the RA or selected by virtue of party leadership). I take positions because I believe that they are the right positions to take (even if my Party takes a different position) -- and I maintain those positions unless I am personally persuaded that I am wrong. This means that I have a certain kind of integrity -- but it is a prickly integrity, ill-suited to Party leadership or to the kind of herding-cats coalition building we need the LRA to do.

Beathan

[Jon Seattle]

During the election, while the voting was underway, ThePrincess came to me and volunteered that her faction had discovered a way to decrease the value of other faction’s members votes and was using that because they were afraid that they would not get seats otherwise. She was very surprised that no one else had spotted it, was proud of her discovery, and insisted that it be corrected for the next election. She was wrong to try to use this method as it intentionally devalued other people’s votes. She also misunderstood our system enough to feel that it was necessary (it was not). But she did us a favor by pointing out a serious problem in the way votes are tallied. There are three options:

1. We can go back to the old system if we wish.
2. We can correct the system so that eliminating factions does not get stronger and stronger the more you eliminate. The current system has an “anger dividend” built in.
3. We can keep the system as it is now.

My preference would be 1, 2, and we should certainly avoid 3. In reverse order:

Option 3. Keep Things As They Are
The current system has a bit extra built in. If you eliminate more factions, the more points you will be subtracting from each faction.

- This is apt to mislead most people who don’t know the trick. Its not really obvious to most people that if you subtract some points from faction A by eliminating it, you subtract even more points from faction A by eliminating A and B. And even more points are subtracted from A if you eliminate A, and B, and C.

- This gives extra weight to the votes of “mass eliminators”. What I call the anger dividend. If you are mad at zero or one faction, your vote will count less than if you are mad at two or three of the four.

Option 2. Eliminate the Anger Dividend
Correct the system so that eliminating factions does not get stronger the more you eliminate. In this case you can express your anger as well as your approval, but the number of points take from each faction you eliminate does not grow the more you eliminate. The formula for doing this is fairly simple, basically the “vote for” option has points that ramp down depending on position. We would just fix the eliminate option so as to take the ramp into consideration when subtracting points.

This is not my preference. I prefer one aspect of the old system. It tended to bring people together to share their votes among multiple factions. The down side is that it tends not to provide as strong a means for retribution on one faction or another. But I much prefer a system where the main question is, is faction A better than B and not do I hate B enough to eliminate it.

Option 1.
And that leaves option one, which I support.

Having said that, I think the real problem with our system is not the Borda score, but the Sainte-Laguë method, which makes the number of parties that support a particular proposition far more important than the number of people represented by those parties. You got it: the only way to balance three smaller right-wing parties is to have a greater number of left wing parties, and so on. Really it is one of the craziest aspects of an electoral system I have seen. As long as we keep it, the Borda points earned by each faction earns won't matter much in the outcome.

[Bromo Ivory]

Bromo -- I think that this is unfair to the CSDF and to the SP. [...]

Fair enough - I meant no offense or to impune anyone's integrity. I will therefore withdraw my commentary and remain silent on this particular issue. I am sorry.