A Plea for a Private Ballot

[Lethen]

I don't think it's necessarily true that politics isn't fun if we can't see the vote until the end lol

Our elections are an integral element of our politics in Europeia; the "premier event" of our politics. This is something that has been stated by others for years. I know Mal's said it a few times in the past, as has hyanygo (okay maybe a bad example there ), off the top of my head.

Making our elections less interesting is going to make our politics less interesting.

 

[Xecrio]

This isn't exactly a common thing we face, though. We've had three or four close elections - insanely close - that I can remember over the past 4 or 5 years.

If it's not a common thing then how come we've started this after one time? Yet, I think it's clear that there are some people who do want electoral reform. How this would work is yet to be seen, but it's good we're having a discussion on it.

 

[Aexnidaral]

I don't think it's necessarily true that politics isn't fun if we can't see the vote until the end lol

Our elections are an integral element of our politics in Europeia; the "premier event" of our politics. This is something that has been stated by others for years. I know Mal's said it a few times in the past, as has hyanygo (okay maybe a bad example there ), off the top of my head.

Making our elections less interesting is going to make our politics less interesting.

I just don't agree that it makes our elections remotely less interesting, especially given the prevalence of polling prior to elections that often times is a pretty good snapshot for the results.

But like I said previously, I think there's value in testing it out for a couple of elections before we decide to keep it or chuck it.

 

[Lethen]

And we can politely disagree. I know I have no interest in implementing this, personally.

 

[Lethen]

This isn't exactly a common thing we face, though. We've had three or four close elections - insanely close - that I can remember over the past 4 or 5 years.

If it's not a common thing then how come we've started this after one time? Yet, I think it's clear that there are some people who do want electoral reform. How this would work is yet to be seen, but it's good we're having a discussion on it.

Because Europeians tend to overreact sometimes.

 

[Aexnidaral]

I think it's worth a try before we were to implement it permanently. There's not really a downside to giving it a chance, one way or another.

 

[Xecrio]

This isn't exactly a common thing we face, though. We've had three or four close elections - insanely close - that I can remember over the past 4 or 5 years.

If it's not a common thing then how come we've started this after one time? Yet, I think it's clear that there are some people who do want electoral reform. How this would work is yet to be seen, but it's good we're having a discussion on it.

Because Europeians tend to overreact sometimes.

That's true. I do think however that the senate should look into some sort of reform. What this is? I haven't got a clue. It may be the smallest little thing. Perhaps we could change the voting system? I watched a lecture in ucr con about this. Perhaps we could just do away with elections all together and just establish HEM as dictator (not sure this is plausible though).

 

[Aexnidaral]

I'm not sure if there's really anything the Senate needs to outright reform when it comes to our election processes, most of what we're talking about can be done without legislative intervention.

 

[Xecrio]

I'm not sure if there's really anything the Senate needs to outright reform when it comes to our election processes, most of what we're talking about can be done without legislative intervention.

By reform, I mean legislative intervention. I just got excited.

 

[Rand]

While I agree that the policy proposed here could legally be implemented by the Chancellery, I think such a significant change in policy should originate from the legislature. I am not sure if I personally support the proposal, but I would be open to discussing it if another Senator thought it warranted action.

 

[Kari]

This isn't exactly a common thing we face, though. We've had three or four close elections - insanely close - that I can remember over the past 4 or 5 years.

This.

This isn't exactly a common thing we face, though. We've had three or four close elections - insanely close - that I can remember over the past 4 or 5 years.

If it's not a common thing then how come we've started this after one time? Yet, I think it's clear that there are some people who do want electoral reform. How this would work is yet to be seen, but it's good we're having a discussion on it.

TL;DR: In, not Soviet, Europeia: """"""politicians""""" love drama and over-blowing things.

 

[Darcness]

I think we should do it a few times and see.

So in other words, this is a hard no from me.

Unfortunately, the OSC, the body that has the authority to experiment with it, refuses to do so. It appears that we'll have to get more heavy-handed method, which is unfortunate.

 

[Kari]

I think we should do it a few times and see.

So in other words, this is a hard no from me.

Unfortunately, the OSC, the body that has the authority to experiment with it, refuses to do so. It appears that we'll have to get more heavy-handed method, which is unfortunate.

Rather disingenuous to say this when the Supreme Chancellor is proposing other methods to address the perceived "problem" in another thread on the matter.

That's something else that I think we should address with this poll and Calvin's article. This change is knee-jerk; we didn't necessarily have tied elections this time around from the poll being public. We've had a few people admit that they didn't vote due to time constraints and, more commonly, because they couldn't decide and/or weren't impressed enough to choose one candidate over the other. That is not a common problem we'll continue to face, in my opinion.

What *would* be interesting with multiple tickets (let's say more than 3 tickets? Maybe more than 2?) would be a first round of voting where you have more than one vote (let's say the # of votes is the total # of candidates minus one). If one ticket gets 50%+1, you're good. If no one does, it just cuts down to the top two or three tickets, and we vote again. Isn't this ranked-preference voting? I forget the actual name.

 

[Lethen]

I think we should do it a few times and see.

So in other words, this is a hard no from me.

Unfortunately, the OSC, the body that has the authority to experiment with it, refuses to do so. It appears that we'll have to get more heavy-handed method, which is unfortunate.

Wasn't aware I spoke for Drecq and DH ?‍. I've almost always gone towards consensus with my VCs when it comes to big changes, and this isn't any different. You couldn't know that though, so I'm not holding it against you. I have added "personally" into some of my posts about this, but I didn't make it clear I'm speaking as Lethen the Citizen.

 

[HEM]

I mean, a bigger issue is that right now, transparency into the results does play into multi-candidate races. So let's say I'm a voter, and I'm truly torn between Candidate A and Candidate C. Voting for Candidate A means that the candidate wins outright, but a vote for Candidate C means there is a runoff and I get more time to decide / interested in seeing how the rest of the region would vote given Candidate B's elimination. Right now that's power the voter gets — they've always gotten — and I'd argue should get. Voters could use polls to some degree to game these things out, but as we've seen, polls aren't always dead on the money.

I think there's this idea of, oh, once voters can't see the totals they will just vote for the candidate they truly want. But in reality, that choice is often a complicated decision and I'm not for depriving voters of that information to give peace of mind to candidates or the electorate.

 

[Lethen]

I think there's this idea of, oh, once voters can't see the totals they will just vote for the candidate they truly want. But in reality, that choice is often a complicated decision and I'm not for depriving voters of that information to give peace of mind to candidates or the electorate.

I also said elsewhere that I'm not how private polls are implemented, but I imagine you could easily circumvent polling privacy by asking someone who has voted what the results are. But maybe I should look up a private poll test we've done - I'm sure we have - and confirm this possibility.

 

[Xecrio]

I mean, a bigger issue is that right now, transparency into the results does play into multi-candidate races. So let's say I'm a voter, and I'm truly torn between Candidate A and Candidate C. Voting for Candidate A means that the candidate wins outright, but a vote for Candidate C means there is a runoff and I get more time to decide / interested in seeing how the rest of the region would vote given Candidate B's elimination. Right now that's power the voter gets — they've always gotten — and I'd argue should get. Voters could use polls to some degree to game these things out, but as we've seen, polls aren't always dead on the money.

I think there's this idea of, oh, once voters can't see the totals they will just vote for the candidate they truly want. But in reality, that choice is often a complicated decision and I'm not for depriving voters of that information to give peace of mind to candidates or the electorate.

Government transparency is imperative on ensuring accountability. I completely understand your point of said voter wanting to see the polls because they get more time to decide and so on.
I think polls have always been an issue on internet games, especially like NS. In real life you can just check voter ID and be done with it. Here that's more of a challenge to know who voted in what round.
Voting in any election is complex, I was torn between Dax and Calvin. Then I feel that if I couldn't see the results that if have voted for who I truly wanted. I'm not everyone though and some people could struggle to vote without seeing live results. This also may sound like I'm changing my standpoint. I'm not. I'm adapting it and taking into account other people's considerations.

 

[Prim]

I think there's this idea of, oh, once voters can't see the totals they will just vote for the candidate they truly want. But in reality, that choice is often a complicated decision and I'm not for depriving voters of that information to give peace of mind to candidates or the electorate.

I also said elsewhere that I'm not how private polls are implemented, but I imagine you could easily circumvent polling privacy by asking someone who has voted what the results are. But maybe I should look up a private poll test we've done - I'm sure we have - and confirm this possibility.

That's not the type of closed poll they're talking about here.

In this instance, the results would be hidden from everyone until the close of the poll. It's not like the "can't see the results until you vote" sort of option.

 

[Darcness]

I think there's this idea of, oh, once voters can't see the totals they will just vote for the candidate they truly want. But in reality, that choice is often a complicated decision and I'm not for depriving voters of that information to give peace of mind to candidates or the electorate.

I also said elsewhere that I'm not how private polls are implemented, but I imagine you could easily circumvent polling privacy by asking someone who has voted what the results are. But maybe I should look up a private poll test we've done - I'm sure we have - and confirm this possibility.

A while back, I installed some code that would make this all possible. I can walk you through some of the particulars if that would help. In essence, it could be configured such that nobody can see the result screen until the poll closes, then the results would be available to everyone.

 

[Lethen]

I'm not entirely sure we should be getting rid of strategic voting and other exciting aspects of campaigns/elections in that case.

Also on the idea of voters being malicious or voting "to be fair," I know I use the ability to view polling results in Senate elections to partially inform my decision. In particular with fringe candidates who aren't the frontrunners that will get more than enough votes to get in.