CSM Campaigns

Then explain it. Because you're claiming that someone else can affect the value of my vote in a negative fashion.

Either that, or you're being disingenuous in your wording of 'Whaaa, the CFC can get more people to vote, which means the people who voted for me have their votes be a smaller percentage of the total'

...the wiki article didn't explain it because STV doesn't work that way, or at the very least Wright STV doesn't work that way. So here's what happens in your mock election, assuming 2000 "common ballot" and 1000 CFC votes, with a quota of 1000 (which means two seats - quota = votes/[seats + 1]). First-choice appearances are tallied, which gives us M and then A as meeting the quota and...that's it. They get elected, election over.

2000 CFC ballots and 1000 Bloc 1 ballots ends the same way in the above example.

If it's a three seat election then quota = 3000/4 = 750 votes for election. As with above, first choice votes are tallied, M has 2000 votes, A has 1000 votes, both are provisionally elected. Excess votes on the Bloc 1 ballot are calculated first, as they have more votes. There are 1250 excess votes, 2000 total votes were cast on that line, so 1250/2000 = .625 votes per ballot in the line passes to the second place candidate on the list, or .625 * 2000 = 1250 (obviously the math is easy with such a simple set of ballots, it gets much messier and complicated when you have more variety). Anyway, U has more than 750 votes, so U is elected, and the election is done - all three seats have been filled.

Flip that around, 2000 CFC ballots and 1000 Bloc 1 ballots and it works the same way, except A & M are elected and CFC excess elects B. Bloc 1 ballots have excess as well, which they never get a change to distribute, though it doesn't actually matter as 250 votes won't elect anyone anyway.

Four seat? Quota of 600 votes. Back to the original example, A & M are elected, U is elected from 1400 spill-over votes, his spill-over is then calculated, 800 votes pass to I. Likewise, 2000 CFC ballots and 1000 Bloc 1 ballots elects A and M and then B & C.

etc

So let's take the extreme example. 2000 CFC votes and 1000 Bloc 1 votes, but the election is for 8 seats, so a quota of 334 votes. The earlier mentioned simplistic nature of the ballots makes calculating this really easy - take 2000 and subtract 334 votes, pass to the next in line. So A is elected with 2000 votes, passes 1667 to B, who passes 1332 to C, who passes 998 to D, who passes 664 to L, who passes 330 to K. Well, crap, still not enough seats to prove my point, really... we wind up wiith A, M, B, C, D, and L elected, then it distributes excess on the Bloc 1 ballot and we pick up U and I as well.

Huh. Not enough to prove my point. What about a 10 seat election? I can't hardly go any higher than that, you've only got 12 candidates listed. So now we've got 273 votes as a quota, 2000 votes for the CFC ballot, 1000 for the bloc 1. And now we're talking. Candidates A & M are elected, the line with A on it has the most votes, so their excess is distributed. And wouldn't you know it, it trickles down to 362 votes passing along their line to Candidate M, who according to you now loses the election, or something.

Well no, not really. He's already elected, so those votes skip him, try to go to the next person, which doesn't exist, and so just fizzle out and do nothing. We've only got 8 people elected and need 10, so we move on to count the excess on the Bloc 1 ballot, and enough votes cascade down to elect U and I as well.

Works the same way in reverse if we say Bloc 1 has 2000 votes and the CFC ballot has 1000. M and A are elected, then U, I, W, D, L and P make it in on M's spillover, B and C make it on A's spillover.

At no point in this process does it matter at all that M was listed on the tail end of the CFC ballot, and I'm not sure there's any STV system where just listing someone on the end of your ballot is a route to ****ing them over, just because it's such a blindingly obvious hole in these voting systems, which believe it or not, were crafted by their designers to be fair.

So yeah. There's that.

Steve mentioned the discussion in the thread to me, so I swung by to take a look. Seeing as I wrote an extensively read blog post on the topic back when CCP swapped to Wright, misunderstandings of the system are at least of casual understanding to me, regardless of who is making them. In any case, use that as a starter, read the wiki etc if you're worried I may have distorted it in my blog, and take the the time to educate yourself on how the system actually works, then perhaps we can have a discussion about the system without resorting to things that neither side can satisfactorily prove or disprove like "buying thousands of accounts to vote with."


As to the CSM being "stacked" with CFC numbers, I can pretty much assure you that the number of CFC members on the CSM is more or less exactly commensurate with the total proportion of votes cast, plus or minus the granularity brought on by "thousands of votes" as compared to "fourteen slots". I did however just return from a night of drinking in Iceland, so **** if I can go back and dig into the ballot right now to demonstrate this.

However, if you agree that Two Step is probably a neutral, uninterested party, you can use his numbers here. We put two definitively CFC candidates on the council, by which I mean we had two people - myself and Sion - in our top slot of the recommended ballot. Ancillary candidates included Angry Moustache, Jayne Fillion and Xander Phoena, who made it in. Technically you can call Ali Aras a CFC candidate as well - she was featured prominently on the ballot - but while Two Step's analysis doesn't show this, a cursory examination of the results file will show you that she made it in entirely on the strength of her own support, and ours didn't actually do anything for her.

Anyway.

Based on Two Step's analysis, we cast anywhere from 14% to 26% of the votes, depending on whether you count full votes only, or full votes and partial votes, or somewhere in between. See his thread for definitions of that. STV is supposed to produce a result proportional to the voting population (that's important and we'll come back to it). So, 14% times 14 seats - that's 1.96 candidates on the council, more or less exactly equal to Sion and I. At 26%, it'd be 3.64 candidates on the council. As Xander very likely had a decent chunk of his own support in addition to whatever votes cascaded down to him, plus whatever portion of GENTS (at the time) listed him in first place, I think it's pretty safe to say that the CFC is in fact represented exactly as we should be given the turnout for this year.


Which brings me back to that important phrase "the voting population." Whether you believe or not that the votes are "real" or are just dummy accounts...doesn't matter, really. No election system in the world can claim to accurately represent a population where a portion of the population does not vote, and frankly the EVE population is put to shame by approximately "every democratic country on the planet" when it comes to turnout. And again being perfectly frank, there are two kinds of people in EVE: Those who, to be charitable, do not like you, and those who have not heard of you. The latter probably also fall into the category of "do not vote." If you want to do something to diminish the CFC's presence on the CFC, my recommendation would be to try to reach out to those people and get them voting, rather than try to run yourself. Good luck - many others have tried.

With that said, I'm drunk and tired, and my bed is calling. I'm out - peace.

You're essentially engaging a question that's been around for as long as the idea of voting has been; namely do those that do not engage deserve a voice. You may not be asking it directly, but what you are putting forward is just another angle, another side of the question.

The voting system in EVE is wide open. There's nothing about the system itself that prevents or prohibits someone from voting . So with that in mind, let me pose to you the counter question: how does any course of action, any change to the voting system itself produce a better outcome for those that do not make their voice heard than ensuring they are aware that they have the choice in the first place is something they are aware of? How does punishing those who do make their voice known, loudly and effectively, improve things for those who don't speak up at all? Or to pose this a third way, if a notional "silent majority" exists, how do you claim to know what they want, that the beliefs you propose are in their best interests or in their interests at all? After all, they're silent.


As to the notional buying of votes, I'm well aware that it's plausible, as I studied the plausibility myself...and concluded its a hilarious waste of a LOT of isk in light of the fact that we've demonstrated the ability to capture two seats with straight vote power since well before we were ever wealthy enough to consider buying them.

The problem is defining the demographics.

Are incursions a demographic? Because a lot of incursion runners are alts of people who do other things, like wormholes and nullsec. How about 'industrialists' because they're smeared over the whole of new eden.

It's a nice sound bite, but it doesn't translate well to reality.

I have and I am the last person on the ballot.

I am not going to argue this with you. It would be against your function to admit anything.

On the other hand: Your topic is the only unlocked topic in this entire forum.

That has got to count for a win somehow, right?




....right?

I'd personally be more concerned about your ability to differentiate plain fact from trolling. That is, if I was you.

This is not a troll thread.

I have every intention of running and hopefully winning election.
Only by challenging myself do I become stronger.

Winning the CSM will be very difficult but once I have the rest will be cake.
The workload described by csm members past and present seems like a dream to me. I did an 800+~ page independent study on system analysis and design when I was 16. I think I can handle whatever CCP throws at me.

Frankly my plan to build rapport with the other members was to take on far more than my fair share of work and duties.
This is less about proving myself to my peers and more about my own learning and growth through the helping of others.

I have only ever truly triumphed in the service of others.