19 January 2008 RA Election Results

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Jon Seattle
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19 January 2008 RA Election Results

Post by Jon Seattle »

Vote CDS - Results

Election ID: jan08cds
Election Name: January 2008 CDS Election
Voters: 44

Borda count: CSDF 128 (30.404%), Seats: 2
Borda count: SP 103 (24.466%), Seats: 2
Borda count: NuCARE 98 (23.278%), Seats: 2
Borda count: DPU 92 (21.853%), Seats: 1

Claude Desmoulins
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Re: 19 January 2008 RA Election Results

Post by Claude Desmoulins »

Just to raise the issue promptly, the SP has earned more seats than it has candidates.

Article IV says, in part ...

Based on the ranking form the general election, the faction members to be elected to the RA will selected based on the descending order of the number of points received based on the Borda-count of the rankings. The members will be selected until all available seats for the party are filled. If a member retires from the RA, a member with the next highest ranking in the same faction is takes a seat on the RA.

In the event that a faction, via resignation or impeachment, exhausts its list of eligible RA members drawn up at the previous general election during the course of an RA term:

1) If the faction no longer meets the constitutional requirements or if no members of the faction are willing to serve, there shall be a special election to fill, for the remainder of the term, the seats left vacant.

2) If the faction the list of which is exhausted still meets constitutional requirements as spelled out in Article V and there are members of that faction, who did not stand in the previous general election, willing to fill the vacated seats, members of the affected faction shall rank those candidates to fill the vacated seats as they do in the general election.

note it mentions resignation, impeachment and retirement ,but not a faction not having enough candidates to begin with.

Article I section 2 says in part.....

Each faction controls their seats and may replace members or fill seats due to vacancies as they see fit.

This may take a bit of sorting out.

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Re: 19 January 2008 RA Election Results

Post by michelmanen »

Hmm, lets see what the actual results are (in terms of first votes - given to one's preferred party):

CSDF: 13 votes
SP: 11 votes
CARE: 11 votes
DPU: 9 votes
"No-Vote Party": 28 votes

So over 40 per cent of the voters abstained or were excluded form voting. From the 7 elected officials, 1 will resign and be replaced by a lower-vote getter - while another doesn't even exist and will be selected god knows how by god knows who. 59 people did not have the chance to vote for Pat or Bjerkel, 61 voters did not have the chance to vote for Brian or his ghost-running-mate, 61 voters did not have the chance to vote for ThePrincess and Bromo, and 63 voters did not have the chance to vote for Sonja.

The Leader (!) of the RA will have the support of all of 2 RA members (including himself) and will face a majority of 5 who may or may not support him on a case-by case basis; and the Chancellor will be selected by a whooping 7 people.

Now this might be excusable at the beginning of a democratic experiment; we are now in our 4th year and 8th RA. There is no justification and excuse for such an utter disaster.

Sorry folks, this is really not for me. You go on playing your style of "democracy" if it makes you happy. I want nothing to do with it any more.

So you will be pleased to know I am resigning my CDS citizenship with immediate effect.

Y'all take care; it's been a slice!

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Re: 19 January 2008 RA Election Results

Post by Justice Soothsayer »

michelmanen wrote:

59 people did not have the chance to vote for Pat or Bjerkel, 61 voters did not have the chance to vote for Brian or his ghost-running-mate, 61 voters did not have the chance to vote for ThePrincess and Bromo, and 63 voters did not have the chance to vote for Sonja.

As a voter in the Ohio democratic party, I don't have the opportunity to vote for Bill Richardson or Joe Biden since they have dropped out after being on the ballot in other states. Any I don't get to choose among Giuliani, Huckabee, McCain, Thompson, or even the pseudo-libertarian Ron Paul. But so what? The electoral system doesn't let me choose the candidates of the other party, and the calendar of states deprives me of some other choices, but that is how the electoral system operates.

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Re: 19 January 2008 RA Election Results

Post by Beathan »

So long Michel ... it's been ... different. ;-)

As for Brian's "ghost running mate" -- if I am drafted, I will serve a second term. My life looks like it is sorting itself out again.

However, if another SP member wants the post, I would like to see that. There is a large pool of talent -- and unlike Michel, I expect that most SP members have enough confidence in their party mates to let just about any of us step up and serve without suffering heartburn.

Beathan

Let's keep things simple enough to be fair, substantive enough to be effective, and insightful enough to be good.
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Bromo Ivory
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Re: 19 January 2008 RA Election Results

Post by Bromo Ivory »

Hi Guys -

I am posting a quick note here to create a record for the SC (Claude asked me to do this).

nuCARE's second seat was apparently a 3-way tie between MT, Mizou and myself. Therefore I will stand aside and let the tie drop from a 3-way tie to a 2 way between Mizou and MT.

Incidentally - I just purchased a 512m^2 lot in AM so I am not going anywhere, if anything I am doubling down!! ;)

I wish to also offer any assistance I may be able to provide to the SC to help with the election situation. I am certain the resolution will make CDS stronger!

==
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Re: 19 January 2008 RA Election Results

Post by cleopatraxigalia »

Good bye Michel thank you for the positive things you have done and the lessons you have taught us.

We will take the good and move forward.

Be well.

ThePrincess Parisi

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Re: 19 January 2008 RA Election Results

Post by Patroklus Murakami »

Can we have the definitive list of the successful candidates please? Who was elected as RA member for each of the factions? Who is the new LRA? I know, but there's been no public announcement.

Could we also have the full statistics from this election i.e. how the Borda count was made up of 1st, 2nd, 3rd and 4th preferences? Michel has claimed that the CSDF got 13 first votes and the SP 11 but it's not clear how he got this from the Borda counts of 128 and 103 respectively. We need to know how the electoral reforms enacted in the previous session have turned out in practice in a real election.

Honi soit qui mal y pense
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Re: 19 January 2008 RA Election Results

Post by Jon Seattle »

Thank Goodness! Finally! By the way I have a medical test today (they make me run like hell, then put me on what looks likes a cookie sheet and slide me into a large machine, I kid you not) so will not be able to post much.

CSDF
Patroklus Murakami (LRA)
Bjerkel Eerie

SP
Brian Livingston
[TBD]

NuCARE
ThePrincess Parisi
[TBD because of tie]

DPU
Sonja Strom

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Re: 19 January 2008 RA Election Results

Post by Jon Seattle »

This may be most important result of the entire election. Study it well. We are all much more connected than we tend to think during the campaign.
Image
Percents are rounded. Percents in the first chart are relative to the number of points that faction received from actual votes. Percent in the second chart is relative to the total number of points given by that factions voters to other factions. Because I used the 1-based Borda count described in the Wikipedia article there are a very small number of points that each party received from eliminated votes.

I refer to those who put faction X first as “faction X members”. I realize this is a simplification, that identity may be very provisional, but is the best number I have. In any case all factions would benefit by considering its constituency as larger than those few who show up for meetings.

I will post the raw frequency table this evening.

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Patroklus Murakami
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Re: 19 January 2008 RA Election Results

Post by Patroklus Murakami »

Thanks for posting the summary information Jon, it makes for interesting reading. Now that I've had a day to consider the results, here are some observations:

1. The CSDF did outstandingly well, with over 50% of the first preferences cast (23 out of 44). This is clearly a firm mandate for the CSDF platform and our best election result ever. If this had been a 'first past the post' election the CSDF would have swept the board. With such strong support it's rather surprising that we only got 2 out of the 7 seats; 3 would have been more in keeping with the level of support expressed.

2. CSDF supporters were generous in their support of other factions too, with around 50% of the points gained by the DPU, NuCARE and the Simplicity Party coming from being ranked by CSDF supporters according to the first table.

3. Some factions are more generous than others though and we can see evidence of tactical voting. This election was the first one in which voters could eliminate factions they did not want to vote for. We can see how the different factions' supporters behaved by looking at the second table and dividing the number in the second column (contributed) by the number in the first column (members). This tells us, on average, how many points a supporter of a faction contributed to the other factions contesting the election. These work out at:
CSDF 5.4
DPU 4.5
NuCARE 3.7
Simplicity 6.0

So, the CSDF, Simplicity Party and (to a slightly lesser extent) DPU supporters were more generous in ranking other factions as well as their first choice than NuCARE voters. NuCARE supporters, either on their individual initiative or because they were orchestrated, acted more 'selfishly' by eliminating the other factions more systematically.

This has some interesting potential consequences. Will it, for example, make some factions more or less likely to cooperate with each other in the new RA? With four factions and the legislature split 2-2-2-1, getting a majority in favour of a bill (let alone a constitutional amendment) is going to be a tricky business. Will factions choose to 'punish' those who seem to have played a cleverer tactical game? The first test will no doubt be the election for Chancellor...

There will be concerns expressed that this election result is not 'fair'. I'm sure I'll be accused of special pleading but, with over 50% of the first preferences cast, I think CSDF supporters would be right to feel somewhat cheated with only 2 out of 7 seats. It could be argued that the electoral mathematics have led to a perverse result. What will the reaction to that be? If voters see that ranking other factions as well as your first choice actually disadvantages your preferred party, will that lead to more 'one-party' voting where voters eliminate all but their first choice in order to maximise the power of their vote? Will this lead to calls for further electoral reform to combat tactical voting?

All very interesting, and somewhat surprising.

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Re: 19 January 2008 RA Election Results

Post by Jon Seattle »

One of the first things Moon said to me when CSDF was running for the first time was that I should stop worrying so much: that the system is very kind to smaller parties. We see that very well in these results.

The mathematical reason for the system being kind to smaller parties has mainly to do with the Sainte Lague seat allocation algorithm. It is approximately a proportional representation system. So, if for example, one seat is granted for every 12% of the vote, the top party has to get 36% to be guaranteed a third seat. In this case the precent of the Borda points (30.4%, 24.5%, 23.4%, and 21.9%) are just not spread out enough to give CSDF a third seat this time around. If we build on our strengths there is a good chance that we will do very well in the future.

Your point about the system being very different from a first-past-the-post election is absolutely correct. CSDF would have done quite a bit better in an election that involved voting for a first choice only. But this would come at the cost of greatly lowered representation for DPU and SP which end up getting ranked highly even if not first place.

What happened, I think, is that there were really two competitions in this election. CSDF and NuCARE competed for first place votes, and DPU and SP competed for second and third place votes among the same voters. What our current system does it makes us into CSDF/SP ers, NuCARE/DPUers, and CSDF/DPU ers etc. To the degree that this better captures the nuances of our electorate and requires larger parties to negotiate with smaller ones, its not a bad thing.

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Re: 19 January 2008 RA Election Results

Post by Bromo Ivory »

I tend to agree with Jon - the minority and compromise views are helped by the Borda system. And it did happen this time despite the new rules.

I fear our Borda system was weakened last term by the amendment passed by allowing "elimination" of all other parties if one desired. This will allow greater polarization as elections go forward - which has me, like Jon, worried. Didn't happen so much this time - but the Borda count and distribution can weaken if things get a bit more polarized than they are now.

I am also concerned by allowing non party members to rank candidates, there is now a greater duty to the electorate as a whole to make sure there are enough candidates listed to fill seats - hence the SC dilemma that involves the Simplicity Parties "tbd" seat.
(Meaning, this is a bit of a constitutional crisis, really, since all first voters, not just SP party members, would have to approve the initial candidates in order to have the same rules for election apply to all RA members!)

I will leave out the possibility that the SP may have both candidates resign and have the party appoint Michel and Desmond Shang (assuming both were eligible to sit in the RA - but you get my point) as the 2 RA members without any of the non party member first votes having a say about it. (This would be perfectly legal in our system as it sits currently - however unlikely)

But I digress ...
The point of a Borda system is that the majority "first past the post" winner does NOT get a mandate - at least not nearly a sweeping one - because it is the median view that is respected and represented! And much of the "power" of the RA comes not entirely from first votes, but second and third rankings as well - so, as Jon indicated, and I have to agree - everyone faction voted for the others, at least a little bit, and this means the RA represents a little bit of everyone - every seat.

(I would hope the RA would take up some of these issues and clarify some effects of last terms reform)

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Re: 19 January 2008 RA Election Results

Post by Rose Springvale »

At the risk of sounding naive, I'd like to point out a flaw with the current system that I am not sure anyone is addressing, and that is that the only way one had an opportunity to affect the "majority" party, LRA or realistically affect the outcome of this election was to rank one of the parties with multiple candidates first. Statistically, (and i'm not a mathemetition) but it looks to be relatively impossible for DPU and SC not to have their single candidate elected. So in order to have a real "vote" if you will, citizens had to choose to rank either CDSF first, or NuCare. And as the system developed, not even the party members in NuCare got their choice: two thirds of the people who ranked candidates got their choice changed for them by the candidates action AFTER the vote by dropping out of the tie for second place. The question that must come to mind is if they were ever committed to serving, if they withdrew so quickly. And if they weren't... then those people who chose that party first so they could rank candidates seem to have been misled.

I don't know. i'm a skeptic when it comes to this sort of thing. In many ways, it seems we choose the worst parts of democracy for this experiment.

Obviously the best solution would be for all parties to field multiple candidates, but perhaps the right to rank members in each faction with some sort of weighting based on ranking would at least give the sense of having a voice. I bet the developers of the voting system could handle this... :) Sort of like cumulative voting in corporate elections.. if there are 7 seats open i get 7 vote to allocate however i wish... 7 for one candidate and none for the rest, or one vote per candidate, or anything in between. Ranking with percentages by faction can come after the fact instead of before, which would hopefully encourage factions to propose a broader slate.

As a U. S. citizen, i would always rather vote for individual candidates, but given the number of resignations we've seen in the one year i've been in CDS, i can see that might not work in this world. But maybe we can continue looking for ways to give us a sense that we weren't manipulated, and that the good of the community is the goal of our elected officials, rather than a personal "win."

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Re: 19 January 2008 RA Election Results

Post by Cindy Ecksol »

Bromo Ivory wrote:

But I digress ...
The point of a Borda system is that the majority "first past the post" winner does NOT get a mandate - at least not nearly a sweeping one - because it is the median view that is respected and represented! And much of the "power" of the RA comes not entirely from first votes, but second and third rankings as well - so, as Jon indicated, and I have to agree - everyone faction voted for the others, at least a little bit, and this means the RA represents a little bit of everyone - every seat.

As a newcomer to this system (and as a political junkie who actually understands and agonizes over the insanity of the US presidential selection system) I have to admit that I found the whole election process completely fascinating. Some are disconcerted by the fact that CDSF won 50% of the first place votes but only two seats, others by the fact that SP's second seat will have to be filled by someone who wasn't listed as a candidate for that party according to some yet-to-be-determined process, and still others by the fact that the numbers indicate that one party seems to have understood the system better than the others and gone out to intentionally maximize their returns. But I think that Bromo is definitely onto something when he points out that the system we're using here is VERY non-traditional: rather than favoring a winner, it maximizes the chances of including all points of view in the RA. That's not necessarily a bad thing unless those who are seated feel that they can't live with compromises. If that's the case in this RA, it's going to be a very contentious session and little will get done. But as one who spent a considerable amount of time examining platforms and quizzing candidates before the election, I see a wide range of issues where all four parties are more or less in agreement. I will be interested to see if the individuals who landed in seats in the RA (however flawed that process is) will be willing and able to work together to find all that common ground and act on it. In any case, the fact remains that the results of the election are "fair" according to the rules laid out, and even "fair" in the sense that we usually use the word: everyone who voted expressed preferences for first, second and sometimes third factions, and the system "noticed" and rewarded parties who were often a second choice even when they weren't often a first choice. That may not be what those who are used to a zero-sum game system were expecting, but the CDS rules ensure that our elections are not necessarily a zero-sum game.

In the meantime, Rose raises some great points about the inconsistency in the system that makes us believe we are voting for individuals who happen to members of factions when in fact the system creates a situation where the individuals are fungible and the factions really own the seats and can fill them more or less at their whim. The real key to this is that the voting system assumes that you are a "member" of the faction that you rank first, and that you have no right to rank the individuals in any other party. In fact I think that for most people the individual is primary with his/her party affiliation demonstrating an affinity for a set of objectives and policy positions. As a US citizen I have to admit that I'm more comfortable with the person-oriented approach, but I also have to say that the European-style party system where candidates actually adhere to a specific platform and are booted from the party if they deviate too far, is very attractive. Perhaps there's still more fine-tuning to be done to the electoral system here in CDS to make it more accurately reflect voter preferences. I will be looking forward to seeing how we deal with that process in this term of the RA.

Cindy

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