Post election analysis

Beathan · Post by **Beathan** » Sat Jul 21, 2007 2:36 pm

[Warning -- projected numbers significantly wrong.]

OK --

Not having access to the raw numbers, I have tried to figure out the vote totals on the following basis: 50 votes; 1st place votes =2; 2nd place = 1; 3rd place =o

Based on this (people -- if my math is wrong, tell me), I derive (in 1/2/3 order):

CSDF: 20/21/9
SP: 11/28/11
CARE: 19/1/30

From this I determine the following. First, and most obviously, the SP has been supported in a primarily supportive capacity. This is not surprising -- that is how we campaigned. Our job is, first and foremost, to make sure that the other parties behave reasonably and appropriately and institute their policies in a simple way that does not pose risks to the rights of CDS citizens. I think that Brian and I will be very able to carry out this mandate -- which is the only clear mandate in this election.

The election also provides a mandate (although less clear) to the CSDF. What is clear is that the citizens of the CDS do not oppose the four points the CSDF raised as their platform in this election. While this election cannot be seen as a ringing endorsement of that platform in its specific details (less than 50% first mandate); there is no indication whatsoever of any real opposition to that platform (9 3rd place votes -- or less than 20% opposition to CSDF platform). Taken together, this has been a clear electoral endorsement for general CSDF's plan for action, but without a full vote of complete trust and confidence as to the specific details or action plan. This, I think, is further support for the secondary mandate given to the SP to work with the CSDF to implement the CSDF's plan -- but in a way that checks and backchecks it.

These election results also show that CARE continues to be a polarizing force in the CDS. CARE received almost as much 1st place support as the CSDF -- but CARE also received half again as many 3rd place votes as the other two parties put together (or 60% opposition). This means that CARE has extremely strong support among a minority of the citizenry, but is distrusted or specifically opposed by a clear majority.

This presents the most difficult problem for the RA this next term. I think we should try to determine what the CARE partisans most like about CARE and what the CARE opponents most dislike about CARE and try to bridge the gap (if possible). I don't think that the CARE partisans like the very things that the CARE opponents dislike.

It remains to be seen, but my hunch is that:

1. there is broad support for CARE's rhetorical commitments;
2. there is no support for CARE's historical leadership (but there is hope for the next generation);
and
3. there is no support for the policy of dividing the citizenry into committees to discuss policy in a formal and burdensome way -- rather, there is a desire for the RA to listen and respond to the concerns of the citizens expressed in informal venues (these forums; inworld conversations) because this informality places a minimal burden on the time and lives of individual citizens.

I should also note that I think that the reason why the SP received 11 3rd place votes -- more than the CSDF -- is not clear. I think that a 3rd place vote the the CSDF probably indicates opposition to the CSDF's four points. However, 3rd place votes for the SP probably indicate one of two things -- 1. a belief by the voter that the SP has no platform or 2. an objection to my personal "frontal attack" style of debate and contrast campaigning. I think that the votes are as likely to indicate the one as the other -- which is why I personally voted for Brian Livingston as SP RA rep. Fortunately, Brian took the majority of the votes -- and will be senior SP rep -- so objections to my personal prickliness have also been addressed by this election.

All in all, this was a very successful election. Congratulations to all participants.

Beathan

Justice Soothsayer · Post by **Justice Soothsayer** » Sat Jul 21, 2007 4:43 pm

Beathan,

Great analysis, but all premised on your calculations of the raw votes, which might not be accurate. I hope FR would post the vote counts, as happened at the last term's post-election party. Otherwise all is just speculation.

Patroklus Murakami · Post by **Patroklus Murakami** » Sat Jul 21, 2007 5:23 pm

1.20 am here and I am *so* psyched

Now out to get moderately inebriated.

Whoo-hooo! Fantabulosa!

(edited to alter the infelicity)

Flyingroc Chung · Post by **Flyingroc Chung** » Sat Jul 21, 2007 6:23 pm

Ok, so I'm taking a break from hitting my head against the wall, and ran some queries. Beathan made some good guesses, but is off the mark

CSDF: 19|23|8
Simplicity: 15|20|15
CARE: 16|7|27

EDIT: incorrectly reported CSDF last-rank votes as 3, now correct.

Beathan · Post by **Beathan** » Sat Jul 21, 2007 6:26 pm

Wow --

My numbers are very wrong. I didn't think that would happen ...

I need to rethink my analysis.

Good call Justice.

Thank you FR.

Pat -- I assume that "twatted" means something different on your side of the Pond.

Based on these numbers, I can still say that there is solid support for the CSDF agenda. That agenda is opposed by only 16% of the electorate. This has clearly been a solid victory for the CSDF agenda.

The SP also received significantly more first place votes than I projected/expected/guessed. I think that this clearly expresses a desire of the citizens to have government act minimally -- providing for a healthy and beautiful location for us to have our homes and live our second lives -- but not intervening in those homes or second lives unless absolutely necessary.

CARE also received more second place votes than expected. For every second place vote for CARE, a voter expressed strong support for one of the other two parties and strong disapproval of the other. I am not sure what this means -- but it certainly means that Michel's analysis of the SP as a "stalking horse" party for the "oligarchs" who support the CSDF is clearly wrong. However, my earlier claim that CARE is a party of clear polarization is also clearly wrong. I need to get my mind around this one. Frankly, I don't understand it. Anyone who voted for CARE second, please tell me why (even if you panned my party -- I just want to know where these seven voters want the CDS to go).

The distribution of votes shows that each of the three parties clearly distinguished itself from the other parties. This means that we have a live and thriving political culture characterized by real choice and active debate. This is wonderful!

FR -- I like your numbers far more than mine -- and not just because they are real.

Beathan

Flyingroc Chung · Post by **Flyingroc Chung** » Sat Jul 21, 2007 6:35 pm

[quote="Beathan":3dolf32q]
Based on these numbers, I can now say that there is solid support for the CSDF agenda. That agenda is opposed by only 6% of the electorate.
[/quote:3dolf32q]

Sorry, 8 people put CSDF in last place, not 3, as previously reported. Apologies, my mind is currently refusing to work.

Flyingroc Chung · Post by **Flyingroc Chung** » Sat Jul 21, 2007 8:43 pm

My thoughts:

I was somewhat surprised by the turnout, I've heard a lot of speculation that there might be less than 30 votes this time around.

There is no such thing as a CSDF/DPU oligarchy. I'm going to guess that the DPU members share a larger solidarity with Simplicity than CSDF.

CARE has 16 members and also 16 best-rank votes. Meaning either it has not gotten any first-rank votes from non-aligned voters, or it has, but some of its own members did not rank their own faction first.

CSDF has 9 members and 19 best-rank votes. Assuming each member voted for their own faction, they got 10 other people to rank them best. Simplicity has 7 members, and 8 additional first-rank votes.

The 3 factions' total membership is 32, or 64% of the total electorate. Assuming that the DPU has 8 members (in the last elections there were 8 members in the DPU), and further assuming that every faction member voted, there were 10 citizens who voted who were not aligned with any faction. We cant really say which faction these DPU and non-aligned citizens ranked best, other than it was generally not CARE.

What does it mean for next term?

From the DPU perspective, this means we can be competitive in a 4-way election. Even if we only retain the 8 best-votes from our members, we would be able to get a seat in the RA. Our generally successful terms in the RA will also benefit us in getting non-last-place votes.

From the CARE perspective, its large faction base (almost double the size of CSDF) gives it an advantage. However, it will need to be able to attract independent voters' best-rank votes, and more 2nd place votes to win the LRA position.

Now that the CSDF has the LRA seat, and the largest plurality, CSDF's future successes will hinge on its leadership at the helms of the CDS legislature.

The Simplicity party will benefit from missteps of the CSDF, especially if CARE and CSDF align to create too many unsuccessful commission (however, this scenario is speculative at best). Simplicity's one-message platform has a lot of appeal, and a stronger campaign push may allow it to win more seats next term.

Beathan · Post by **Beathan** » Sat Jul 21, 2007 9:06 pm

FR --

Sterling analysis!

I had not included my thoughts on the DPU in my analysis.

The DPU has historically been the faction best able to avoid negative votes. I think that this will not change in the future. Therefore, if the DPU is in the race, I think that the SP would lose at least 5-7 first votes; and the CSDF might likewise lose 2-4 first votes. Assuming that all CARE first votes were from CARE members -- who vote their party -- CARE would not lose any first votes. This might mean that CARE would receive the most first votes -- or might tie with the CSDF.

The second place votes of the SP and the CSDF would probably tend to be split between DPU and the party that was voted second in this race. Given the history of the SP and CSDF's opposition to CARE, I would expect the DPU to get a disproportionate number of the CARE second votes -- with the party that was voted second by CARE voters in this election sliding to 3rd.

DPU would get relatively few third votes and almost no worst votes. Worst votes would look much like they do -- with maybe one of each parties current worsts going to the DPU.

The result -- a tossup between the DPU and CSDF(but with the winner taking 3 seats to the loser's 2) -- with SP in a distant 3rd (but with enough votes for 2 seats) and CARE in an even more distant fourth (with a single seat).

However -- this is even more speculative than my guessed election numbers -- which, as we saw, were wrong.

Beathan

Dnate Mars · Post by **Dnate Mars** » Sat Jul 21, 2007 11:04 pm

First thing I want to say is a congradulations to the Simple Party, the Citizens Solial Demecartic Faction, and to Citizens' Alliance for Rights and Equality. It was a very good race. Got many people thinking about the issues.

The one thing that I read from the CARE blog is how the CSDF and the DPU are so close together. I am just going to bring up the point that the DPU was formed from the ashes of the old MPP which was formed to be against the SCF, which is the base that the CSDF was formed. The really only thing we have in common is that we are both the 2 oldest parties and we want what we think is best for the CDS. Just because the 2 factions have been able to work together in the past does not mean that we are one in the same.

Also, I am pretty much going to agree with Flyingroc with his statements. I can see a lot of the DPU going to the SP because of the smaller government with less intervention. The biggest fault that I saw with CARE is that it seemed the party that wanted to expand the government the most.

Jon Seattle · Post by **Jon Seattle** » Sun Jul 22, 2007 12:15 am

One thing that Diderot said is that traditional-left and right wing positions are changed when they reach Second Life.

CSDF, for example, shares the egalitarianism of RL left wing parties but our focus has been on giving people to tools to develop their own abilities, [u:2p5l0wq3]not[/u:2p5l0wq3] through government programs, but through volunteer opportunities and NGOs. Working to develop one's own skills is an important theme in left-wing writing, but voluntarism has often been identified with center or even right-wing positions.

I don't know if this applies to all of CSDF, but I am a minimalist. Like the Simples I want things to be only as complex as they need to be. Egalitarianism and voluntarism gives me a "for what" to apply that policy to. I want to see simple ways to allow people to meet as equals in democratic institutions and develop their own abilities and skills. I see CSDF (at least as I want it to be in any case) as closer to Simple than to DPU or CARE. Although I do think that CARE is in for a change as the new leadership takes charge.

CSDF is nothing like the old SDF. We differ both in our commitment to creating CDS as a truly democratic republic and our own internal operation as a throughly democratic party. I never was a member of the SDF but I did spark the original formation of the CSDF a year ago . We really do meet every single week to discuss the issues; and everyone, from all parties, are welcome at our meetings.

Flyingroc Chung · Post by **Flyingroc Chung** » Sun Jul 22, 2007 7:05 am

[quote="Dnate Mars":17josjip]the DPU was formed from the ashes of the old MPP...[/quote:17josjip]
My recollection is that the DPU was formed independently of the MPP.

Justice Soothsayer · Post by **Justice Soothsayer** » Sun Jul 22, 2007 8:03 am

FR's electoral analysis is, as usual, spot on.

Michel's post-election analysis http://www.care-cds.com/blog/?p=17 seems to me to be a call to his party to be the loyal opposition party, in opposition to what he perceives will be a CSDF/Simple coalition government. But an opposition party should tread carefully (pun intended), as it can only win elections if it can either increase its #1 ranking among voters and/or its #2 ranking. Thus is becomes in the best interest of all parties to cooperate rather than confront, confirming the wisdom of our founders.

[i:efg4c261](edited to add link to Michel's blog)[/i:efg4c261]

Bromo Ivory · Post by **Bromo Ivory** » Sun Jul 22, 2007 8:03 am

I like this speculation, but things change fast in SL, and I would say that any number of things that could happen between now and then.

For instance, if you felt in your initial analysis that CARE was polarizing because of its leadership - if the polarization goes away - the entire field would change.

If the problems facing CDS were to change (the biggest issue in SL in ANY SIM is apathy) I would expect the electoral decisions to be different as well.

So, while speculation about the effect of the DPU on the *next* election might be entertaining - the RA has a mandate *right now* to meet! And we all have to figure out how to meet it!

(But, I am a simple engineering manager in RL, so I tend to be focussed on solving problems... )

I think Princess and I are committed to working with the other parties as long as we don't abandon our basic principles.

But given how most disaffected DPU voters went Simplicity or CSDF would imply that CARE might very well end up in opposition - though I very much hope not.

Dnate Mars · Post by **Dnate Mars** » Sun Jul 22, 2007 9:34 am

[quote="Flyingroc Chung":2mum6s21][quote="Dnate Mars":2mum6s21]the DPU was formed from the ashes of the old MPP...[/quote:2mum6s21]
My recollection is that the DPU was formed independently of the MPP.[/quote:2mum6s21]

Yeah, but all the MPP move over to it rather quickly. It was a question of leadership and ownership of the groups as I recall.

Justice Soothsayer · Post by **Justice Soothsayer** » Sun Jul 22, 2007 10:47 am

[quote="Bromo Ivory":8ht9jav5]I think Princess and I are committed to working with the other parties as long as we don't abandon our basic principles.

But given how most disaffected DPU voters went Simplicity or CSDF would imply that CARE might very well end up in opposition - though I very much hope not.[/quote:8ht9jav5]

Having served in the last RA with Pat and briefly with Beathan, and in the previous one with Jon and Moon, I can attest that they are always willing to work with others for the common good without regard to partisan politics. I'm hoping that cooperation rather than confrontation will be governing principles in the upcoming session.