CARE Is Endorsed by 32% of the CDS Voting Electorate

[michelmanen]

For a complete analysis of the results of the elections and the long-term political trends in our community, see the post entitled[b:29w86ibr] CARE Is Endorsed by 32% of the CDS Voting Electorate and Doubles Its Seats in the RA[/b:29w86ibr] here: [url:29w86ibr]http://www.care-cds.com/blog/?p=17[/url:29w86ibr]

[Beathan]

Michel --

Similar results to the last election (CARE rejected by 54% of the voters -- I grant you, up from a rejection rate of 65% in the last election) and the same old spin. This compared with a 30% opposition to the SP -- and an impressive 16% opposition to the CSDF.

Contrast these opposition numbers to the numbers showing primary support. 38% CSDF; 32% CARE; 30% SP -- almost evenly divided into thirds. This means that our community does not clearly know what we want (although I think that there are indications of general, tentative support for the CSDF agenda items). However, we do know what we don't want: CARE as presently presented; or at least CARE as previously led.

I am reminded of the analysis I posted to the last results:

[quote:171r4dql]Now the citizens have decided. I think that the moderate but responsive policies of the DPU/CSDF RA have been resoundingly supported. The JA has been resoundingly rejected. The arguments made by the Simplicity Party have not been sweepingly accepted, but the SP did respectably for a new party, so those arguments cannot be said to have been rejected. However, the same is not true of CARE. As pointed out by a CARE member -- the results appear to be a categorical rejection of CARE as the party of lawyer supremacy. The CDS just does not want to have a professional elite class built into our system of government. [/quote:171r4dql]

I think that CARE has benefited greatly as the Judiciary Act has faded into the past -- forcing it to move away from its previous position of "lawyer supremacy." However, that benefit has not significantly changed the electoral position of any of the parties.

I do agree with one key feature of your analysis -- CARE has some very promising new members who show great promise for the future of the CDS. These same people show even greater promise for the future of CARE -- hopefully, they will move CARE away from your failed policies and bring the Party in line with your excellent rhetoric.

However, until that happens, we can expect a majority of the electorate to remain skeptical.

Beathan

[Flyingroc Chung]

Please check out my post here:

http://forums.neufreistadt.info/viewtopic.php?t=1196

as your numbers are somewhat wrong.

[Jeremy Bender]

[quote="michelmanen":3pc7x65l]For a complete analysis of the results of the elections and the long-term political trends in our community, see the post entitled[b:3pc7x65l] CARE Is Endorsed by 32% of the CDS Voting Electorate and Doubles Its Seats in the RA[/b:3pc7x65l] here: [url:3pc7x65l]http://www.care-cds.com/blog/?p=17[/url:3pc7x65l][/quote:3pc7x65l]
I could have told you this result before the election was held.
The US President Abraham Lincoln said it best:

"You can fool [i:3pc7x65l]some[/i:3pc7x65l] of the people [i:3pc7x65l]some[/i:3pc7x65l] of the time and all of the people some of the time, but you can't fool [b:3pc7x65l]all[/b:3pc7x65l] of the people all of the time. "

All this proves is that when you have a virtual monopoly on signage and advertising you can get a lot of people to support a party even if it has no real platform. IMO, CARE simply doesn't have a platform or any competent members to further it. I also think that the vote was "packed" in that in talking to people around the sim I am almost certain that several members of CARE run two or more avatars off the same person. Most of the people I have talked to in the CDS feel the same. Most are too polite to say so.

Personally, I would like to have the option of *not* voting for CARE at all, but it isn't allowed, so like most of the population, I put a vote in for CARE to be dead last, and then only under duress. Because of our eminently fair modified Borda counting system, CARE will continue to haunt the RA when in fact [b:3pc7x65l]in most democratic election systems CARE would not have received enough votes to win a single seat. [/b:3pc7x65l]

Aren't you lucky to have a divisive outsider in your midst (like me) to say these things out loud?
Isn't Democracy great?

As a suggestion to those running the mechanics of the election, I understand the Borda count etc. but why isn't it possible to include an option for *not* voting for a party? Is it not a valid reflection of voter choice to say that a party can be so repugnant (for whatever subjective reasons), that the voter should not be forced to accept it?

What if there was an anti-furry party? Of course it's platform would tend to violate some of the founding documents of the CDS, but it could easily be written so as to make it borderline acceptable without changing the fact that it is an "anti-furry" party. Then voters who were furries would be faced with being forced to vote for a party that they find completely offensive.

Why isn't "I don't want to pick a third party" an option? Other than the CARE members themselves, almost everyone in the sim placed them dead last. Possibly, like me, they did this only because their real vote would not be counted otherwise.

This system is based on the assumption that merely because a party is running for office, it deserves to get a proportion of the RA based on it's relative popularity. That seems faulty to me. Not every party that runs deserves votes. Some parties should be able to run and receive nothing, otherwise it's a broken system IMO.

[Bromo Ivory]

Your attack saddens me. And your attack is a direct insult to me.

As I tend not to bear grudges, I will not bear a grudge against you. But please refrain from these sorts of attacks in the future.

[quote="Jeremy Bender":1yjreav9][b:1yjreav9]in most democratic election systems CARE would not have received enough votes to win a single seat. [/b:1yjreav9]
[/quote:1yjreav9]

Point of fact, if one were to count only first votes - which would be analogous to a no-Borda elections:

If one were to count first votes only -

Total: 50 1st votes

CSDF: 19 1st votes (38%)
CARE: 16 1st votes (32%)
SP: 15 1st votes (30%)

So, out of 7 seats, we would have:

CSDF: 2.66 Seats rounded to 3
CARE: 2.24 Seats rounded to 2
SP: 2.1 Seats rounded to 2

Under the 2nd and 3rd votes, Borda system - Simplicity was helped slightly, but not enough to gain an additional seat.

If one were to drop the party with the least first votes, Simplicity would be discarded.

If one were to a "all or nothing" CSDF would get all the seats, the other 2 parties out in the cold.

Other option would be to more directly vote for candidates - and that is one thing CARE was proposing in its platform this term (as did CSDF last term) - so if you are rejecting all CARE stands for - you cannot be for that.

So, short of abandoning any semblance of democratic process, I cannot see what your point it?

[quote:1yjreav9] Why isn't "I don't want to pick a third party" an option? [/quote:1yjreav9]

Actually your third choice gets ZERO points. So you are "un-picking" the third party.

But your post was based on anger & emotion and not analysis I do see.

[Patroklus Murakami]

Jeremy

It's one thing to accuse people of using alts to pack the vote but another to prove it. If you don't have evidence to back up such a claim you really shouldn't make it.

On your point about the electoral system, I agree. You shouldn't have to place last (and therefore give part of your vote to) a party you don't want to support. That is why the CSDF proposed electoral reform during the last term. The full proposal is [url=http://forums.neufreistadt.info/viewtop ... 2:201o77y0]here[/url:201o77y0]. This would allow voters to rank all of the candidates regardless of which faction they belong to and not transfer their vote to any candidate or faction they do not want to support. We will try to enact this early on so we can use this new system in the next set of RA elections.

To be fair, with 16 out of 50 first preferences, CARE would probably have gained two seats out of seven in most proportional electoral systems

[Flyingroc Chung]

[quote="Patroklus Murakami":1hee7vz0]
You shouldn't have to place last (and therefore give part of your vote to) a party you don't want to support.
[/quote:1hee7vz0]

Last place gets 0 points, so placing some faction last means that you *don't* give part of your vote to that faction.

[Patroklus Murakami]

[quote="Flyingroc Chung":14nw9exv][quote="Patroklus Murakami":14nw9exv]
You shouldn't have to place last (and therefore give part of your vote to) a party you don't want to support.
[/quote:14nw9exv]

Last place gets 0 points, so placing some faction last means that you *don't* give part of your vote to that faction.[/quote:14nw9exv]Thanks for making that clear FR, I didn't realise that was the way the Borda count works.

[Beathan]

Jeremy --

I obviously share much of your skepticism about CARE. However, I have seen no evidence that CARE has stuffed the electorate with alts. Rather, I think that the CARE leadership has recruited people who have come into our community as solid CARE members. This is a good thing if those recruits prove to be valuable citizens. It is a bad thing if their only role in our community is to reliably show up to vote for CARE. (Thus, under the "thousand friends and alts" problem -- even if CARE is not engaged in the abuse of alts, we do need to continue to worry about and monitor the "friends" side -- especially if Michel raises the spectre of "CARE-subsidized" citizenship again.)

Further, no matter how I cut the electoral pricture, on the current vote CARE received 2 seats -- and should have received 2 seats. The fact is that CARE has a solid core of hardline supporters -- who are a distinct minority, but a large enough minority to rightly insist that some attention be paid to them. That said, I think that both CARE and the SP would have lost a seat, and the CSDF may also have lost a seat, if the DPU had been in this election.

The centerpiece of my reasoning in this regard is that, as you point out, most of our community not only does not support CARE -- most of us actually oppose CARE. That is, most of us would vote for CARE last (which is the same as not voting for CARE -- as our last-place vote counts as 0). If CARE is the only party a voter actively opposes, our current system respects that preference -- allowing that voter to not vote for CARE.

However, our voting system does break down when the same voter wants to vote against more than one party. In such case, the voter is forced to place a vote for a party he or she opposes by voting for that party next to last. This might be a problem -- but it also might not be. I consider the last votes to allow for recognition of "the lesser of two evils." Thus, I very much like our Borda Count system as a system that allows for much finer decisionmaking by recognizing gradations of support and opposition by voters.

Beathan