| [PASSED] Amendment to Article 3 of the Elections Act (Delegate Election) |
Hey all -- I noticed something during the delegate elections that we need to change.
The current election set up for delegate pushes the two most "extreme" (or different) candidates with different bases of support to the second round. However, the idea was always to have a delegate who could be a consensus choice and enjoys wide support from both the forum and in-game region. As such, I think we need to move to approval voting for the first round of the delegate election (similar to how we election the Chair). The difference, however, is that we could move three (or even four) nations onto the second round if we had a tie. Further, the delegate elections haven't fit well with the current voting system, so this would be a way to make it easier to understand. Thoughts?
-tsunamy
[forum admin]
I'm not opposed to the idea of changing the voting system. However, I seem to recall after the CoA vote there was concern that that system was not the best or most appropriate.
In the most recent delegate election, I think that the two candidates who go into the second round this time were well qualified and competent ... and we got a pretty good delgate out of it all.  Further having more 'consensual' candidates rather than 'extreme' wouldn't necessarily result in any different an outcome. Wait... does this mean you were an extreme candidate?
(07-23-2018, 01:27 AM)Beepee Wrote: I'm not opposed to the idea of changing the voting system. However, I seem to recall after the CoA vote there was concern that that system was not the best or most appropriate. I would agree with most of your points Beepee -- we did get a great delegate and had two well-qualified candidates. That said, I would argue I was the "extreme" establishment or stable choice versus Tim who ultimately got the vote of people looking for something new and more dynamic; hence, the two poles. The problem with CoA election is that (a) there's only one position and (b) we didn't have a process for a runoff. With the delegate election, we *always* move two people to the second round in-game and could potentially move a host more. Further, the elimination doesn't always make a ton of sense, a few cycles ago, I believe it was TSSS who got shut out because of the quibbles of counting.
-tsunamy
[forum admin]
I thought the purpose of only having two candidates in the final round was so that, even with FPTP the winner would have an absolute majority. If more candidates made it through we would potentially lose this.
Also, and I'm not saying I necessarily agree (or disagree for that matter), but I wanted to inb4 Bel: he has always aimed for the two candidates going through to the second round to have different support bases, hence the 'extremes'. This has been the topic of numerous back and forth arguments on this law before. Anyway, given the confusion during the CoA election, I'm not sure I'd be keen to roll out approval voting into another election. Still, I'll keep an open mind. Sent from my SM-J320FN using Tapatalk Founder of the Church of the South Pacific [Forum Thread] [Discord], a safe place to discuss spirituality for people of all faiths and none (currently looking for those interested in prayer and/or "home" groups);
And The Silicon Pens [Discord], a writer's group for the South Pacific and beyond! Yahweo usenneo ir varleo, ihraneo jurlaweo hraseu seu, ir jiweveo arladi. Salma 145:8
(07-23-2018, 12:03 PM)Seraph Wrote: I thought the purpose of only having two candidates in the final round was so that, even with FPTP the winner would have an absolute majority. If more candidates made it through we would potentially lose this. I think you're right on all accounts Seraph. However, I had always seen the forum-side voting a bit different. Rather than garnering two different bases of support, I always saw it as a space where most active and interested players could vet candidates before they were put before the entire region. There are certainly active and engaged people on the RMB who take the election seriously — Aram and Auphelia are two people who come immediately to mind — but, I'm not sure most of the region is interested in or quite understand what's really at stake from a rogue delegate. As such, I think this is a bit of a loophole that could allow a bad actor or potential coup risk through to the second round, where the election process is already a bit tricker to monitor. Further, the delegate is intended to be a pretty much a ceremonial figurehead, who defers to the PM/Cabinet and LC. Setting up the delegate as a political candidate (with two different bases of support), kinda undermines that role since delegates and trying to promise things to the region. Finally, while yes, the approval voting ran into a hiccup with the last CoA election, that's simply because we hadn't anticipated a tie; a similar situation happened previously with the delegate election when Feir had to make a judgement call on how to proceed. Like all processes here, we use it until it runs into a problem and then we fix it. (And, in fact, we should be fixing the CoA process.) However, again, more than two candidates could proceed to round two in the event of a tie. Alternatively, we could make it so that any candidate who receives an certain percent of approval votes could be passed onto the second round. Honestly, I kinda like that idea because it would give the RMB-side more choices rather than just two. If we're concerned about having 50%+1 vote on the RMB side, we could always move more than two over and have a second round with the top two vote getters.
-tsunamy
[forum admin]
I have no issue with changing the voting system for Delegate if people understand how they all work and want to preference a different type of candidate - Seraph is entirely correct that the current system is designed to favour candidates with ‘strong’ support showing up as first preference votes over candidates with ‘soft’ support who might be many peoples second or third choice, but few peoples first choice. Approval does the opposite of that, and favours candidates with ‘broad but shallow’ support.
I’d strongly argue in favour of retaining the 1 vs. 1 element of the in-game voting though. Minister of Media, Subversion and Sandwich Making
Associate Justice of the High Court and Senior Moderator ![[Image: B9ytUsy.png]](https://i.imgur.com/B9ytUsy.png)
Since the only voting system in-game is FPTP, it's likely that most elections would end up being a tactical two-horse race anyway, so I agree with Bel that only two candidates should progress.
Did some LC, MoRA, CRS stuff in the past. Do a lot of World Census stuff now.
(07-23-2018, 03:20 PM)Tsunamy Wrote:Whilst the issue with the CoA election was indeed the tie, discussion surrounding that seemed to reveal a lack of understanding of the voting process, which is where my concern lies.(07-23-2018, 12:03 PM)Seraph Wrote: I thought the purpose of only having two candidates in the final round was so that, even with FPTP the winner would have an absolute majority. If more candidates made it through we would potentially lose this. I'd be happy enough with a multiple round second round of voting, however, to produce a winner with an absolute majority. With the exception of special elections, which can of course occur at any time, there are no other elections immediately following the delegate election, so there's no hurry. I would, however, suggest that the voting period be decreased. I think a week is too long anyway, since the winner is usually already effectively determined in half that time. Sent from my KOB-L09 using Tapatalk Founder of the Church of the South Pacific [Forum Thread] [Discord], a safe place to discuss spirituality for people of all faiths and none (currently looking for those interested in prayer and/or "home" groups);
And The Silicon Pens [Discord], a writer's group for the South Pacific and beyond! Yahweo usenneo ir varleo, ihraneo jurlaweo hraseu seu, ir jiweveo arladi. Salma 145:8
Now, I wrote a little script using our latest Delegate election to compare results between the current voting method, a plain multi-winner IRV (as in, the second winner is determined through a new election with the winner removed), Condorcet (using Copeland's method, i.e. the number of candidates won against is what counts), and Approval voting (anybody ranked below RON is considered not approved).
Current method (each row represents one round of counting) Code: Beepee Tsu Rebs Tim RON Islands Escade BenRegular Multi-Winner IRV (each row represents one round of counting): Code: Beepee Tsu Rebs Tim RON Islands Escade BenCondorcet (for each table entry, the number represents how many people preferred the individual in the corresponding row over the individual in the corresponding column): Code: | Beepee Tsu Rebs Tim RON Islands Escade Ben COUNTApproval (Each score is how many people gave a vote above RON for that individual): Code: Beepee Tsu Rebs Tim RON Islands Escade BenWhat is striking is, first, that with four different methods, we got three different results. What is also striking, and horrifyingly so, is that the current method very, very strongly favors candidates with strong fringe support over candidates with a broader but softer support. This is, in my opinion, exactly wrong for our Delegate. What we do have to discuss is what to change it to.
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