Jita Park Speakers Corner

that's why their votes are worth more than the other votes

I guess we'll just have to be taken to "the camp" and be "dealt with".

Hans, how is Goonswarm as an alliance able to enforce the voting of a candidate in a secret ballot exactly?
All they can do is encourage. My alliance leader endorsed voting for Trebor (lmao) but that doesn't mean I voted for him.

Well due to the fact that it's possible to tell exactly who any given person voted for we naturally have strict penalties for voting for the wrong candidates, including but not limited to plungerheading, flogging, seizure of lands and vassals, and trepanning

no you fucking shirtlord how could we possibly enforce any kind of rules, are you high

Glad to see you coming around to the CORRECT way of thinking.

Let's show how increased voter turnout affected CSM7 compared to CSM6.

(This is part of a post I'm writing, but it seemed worthwhile to post it as a separate bit here on the forums.)

One major complaint of the CSM election process are the voting blocs. This was an especially loud complaint during CSM6, where nullsec candidates took ten of the fourteen available CSM seats.

I don’t personally see voting blocs as a problem. If you're a group that is motivated and well-organized, you're going to dominate any election. Motivation and organization are two traits that should be encouraged. We want to see people passionate about the political process. We should want to see the number of voters increase, year-by-year. For those concerned with organized voting blocs, the only legitimate way to dilute their voting power is by adding more voters to the process.

Let's do some CSM6 and CSM7 comparisons. CSM7 did see a substantial increase in voting numbers, so we should expect to see the voting bloc influence somewhat diluted.

For CSM6, 49096 votes were cast out of 344533 eligible accounts. 26366 votes were cast for nullsec candidates, or 53.7% of the total vote.

CSM7 saw an increase of 10000 voters, up to 59109 out of 355436 eligible accounts. 24695 votes were cast for nullsec candidates, or 41.8% of the total vote.

The larger voting blocs were still able to push their candidates into CSM seats, but we saw a marked dilution of their vote, as candidates with smaller bases won seats. The increase in voter turnout tended to favour non-nullsec candidates. In the end, nullsec did not dominate the final results, only garnering six of the fourteen available spots (a loss of four seats from CSM6.) Of areas of the game that saw new and renewed representation, industry got their candidate in Issler Dainze, faction warfare got their candidate in Hans Jagerblitzen, mercenaries and pirates got Alekseyev Karrde, highsec got Kelduum Revaan, wormholes got Two Step, and the everyman got Trebor.

As you can see, dilution of voting blocs can only continue as long as voter participation continues to increase. That should be where the CSM focuses its efforts. Not on artificial ways to disenfranchise voters (i.e. voting reform), but through increasing actual democracy. The more voters, the more varied the representation will be.

We haven't really gotten a lot of replies out of the CSM. Really, we've gotten some out of you, but beyond that Trebor has made one post about the merits and that is it from the CSM. There's no back and forth here, which leads to the perception that the ideas will simply be ignored and then swept under the rug. The best counter to that is to make them over and over and over until simply ignoring it becomes untenable.

If Trebor et. al. would actually show up and discuss the system we woundn't need to repeat the same things until they do.

There's no attempt to enforce votes, nor would we try. It's impossible, and it's counterproductive. Instead, we campaign internally and encourage everyone to vote, and really convey to people why it matters that we have someone who knows their **** on the CSM, and why that means you should vote the way we want you to vote.

The goonswarm "get out the vote" program is basically the same as the "get out the fleet" program: encourage people to come, wave the flag, let people know what happens when we win.

Voter A votes for a candidate that wins the most votes, and is elected to the council. Voter A ends up with the council member that best represents their ideas.

Voter B votes for a candidate that wins an excessive amount of winning votes, and is elected to the council. Excess votes are not transferred. Voter B still ends up with the council member that best represents their ideas.

Voter C votes for a candidate that doesn't win enough votes to be seated, and thus ends up helping to seat a candidate that was not his first choice, but ends up seating a candidate nonetheless that will (likely) represent their ideas.

All three voters cast a single vote, and all three voters end up with their preferred candidate on the council, except for C who gets 2nd or 3rd best. How is Voter C enjoying a more privileged outcome than voter B?

Again, honestly asking questions here. I want to make sure I understand how Trebor's proposal creates a situation where you vote for a preferred candidate and that candidate doesn't get seated because there were too many votes, thus "invalidating" the intent of the voter to seat that specific candidate.

Coming around? Fact check: This was one of messages during the last campaign: stop whining about Goon power and get out and vote if you want to make a difference. I've never not felt this way about the election. Just because I believe strongly in the power of voter turnout doesn't mean that there is something wrong with discussing electoral reform. They're not mutually exclusive, and simply participating in a conversation doesn't mean that I think electoral reform is more important.

Go back and find my post where I say that we need to fix elections first and foremost before we worry about voter turnout. If you're going to call me out on a backpedal, at least back it up with some evidence.

That helps greatly. Thanks.