[euro538ia] PRESIDENTIAL ELECTION LIVEBLOG



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EURO538IA ELECTION LIVEBLOG
Europeia Decides, and the EBC posts


Palace of the People, Oval Room - It's the eve of election night, and Europeians are eagerly awaiting the opening of polls. Previous EBC coverage of the race has reported that the candidates were virtually tied going into the text debate held on Wednesday, January 18th.

Both candidates have released platforms which you can check out here:

Endorsements are few and far between so far, matching the quiet mood of the election so far. Olde Delaware appears to have picked up Klatonia and Darcness, while Lloenflys remains unendorsed as of this post. Whether the strategy is to hold endorsements until just before polls open, or if candidates have not yet begun to give their best puppy eye look to their fellow Europeians, remains to be seen.

Stay tuned with EURO538IA liveblog throughout election day as we bring you updates as Europeia Decides.

Prorgramming note: there will be an Europeia Presidential Election liveshow at 6:30 PM EST on 1/20/2023.

Edit: Also note that posts in this thread may be edited by the Minister of Communications (me) for formatting.
 
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In the eleventh hour, presidential candidate Olde Delaware has received riveting endorsements from both former president Darcness and former president Deepest House.

"I think you’ve earned this chance," Deepest House stated in his endorsement. "I believe that Olde Delaware and Sopo represent the right path forward for Europeia," Darcness noted in his endorsement.

We will see if the pre-election momentum continues to swing towards the OD/Sopo campaign, or if Lloen/Kuramia -- who are reportedly engaging in active Get Out to Vote efforts (GOTV) -- can secure endorsements to counter the late push from their opposition.

@PhDre , do you think the recent discourse surrounding the Presidential Commission from Lloenflys following the presidential debate last night is a disadvantage? It has been the most discussed policy this election, for better or worse, but it still seems like voters have a number of questions regarding the idea.
 


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Endorsements are starting to trickle in, with Lloenflys picking up his first endorsement from Sentaor shufordbrian! "I'm very excited and intrigued by this Europeian Future commission" he said - so @Writinglegend there is at least one Europeian who sees promise in this idea!

As for my personal opinion, I see little upside but hey - Europeians are definitely talking about it. One can argue that neither candidate stands out with crazy new ideas, so it makes sense that voters would have the most to say about a candidate outsourcing crazy new idea generation to a .. group of people that remain to be seen!

@Writinglegend what was your reaction to the debate, do you think that any candidate needed the win more? And did either suceeed in coming away with the momentum from the debate?
 
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I'm going to be honest @PhDre , I think the debate was very tame, but I think that has been the theme of this election. When the most discussed idea is a Presidential Commission for ideas, you kind of get the vibe...

I am surprised OldeDelaware hasn't beaten us over the head with his roleplay summit idea, especially with the discourse surrounding the presidential commission, and I almost wonder if it is a missed opportunity. The debate mostly showed the philosophical divide between each candidate regarding the state of activity and what we need to do to address it. While OldeDelaware took the "lighten the load" approach, Lloen stated we need to make it more rewarding. I think OD had a huge missed opportunity in not repeatedly noting that he is the Frontier candidate this election especially considering the update is coming soon. Lloenflys was able to dodge bullets regarding his firm Stronghold stance.

I think OD needed the debate win more than Lloenflys. OD is coming off of a presidential election loss and did not get a Cabinet seat. Meanwhile, Lloenflys has served as Attorney General. I think there were concerns last election with the temperament of OD, but I think he proved a lot of people wrong with his campaign 70 days ago. A strong showing at the debate is/was an opportunity to continue to erode those narratives. Further, OD was slightly behind Lloen in pre-election polling so he seemed to have some ground needing to make up.

It is tough for OD, because while he had a lot of buttons he could press in the debate, doing so might play into these generalizations of his temperament. It is a tough rope to walk, but I feel like there were too many missed opportunities in the debate to really say he firmly "won it".
 


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Excellent points @Writinglegend - the debate was tamer than my average weekend out. And to be fair to the candidates, a lot of the responsibility in racheting up the heat goes to the moderators. Perhaps we failed in drawing those contrasts - but also, I think that the candidates may have been unwilling to go on the offensive and draw contrasts between each other. At the end of the day, perhaps voters will appreciate the buddy cop routine, but I did notice that some following along seemed frustrated with the lack of heat.

I think it's unfair to say that Lloenflys has a firm Stronghold stance, however - recall that the region recently was polled and came in 80/20 in favor of Frontier, so I think that Stronghold candidates see the writing on the wall. In his platform he certainly moderated his position, and I think that makes sense given the position that Europeia has obtained in terms of treaty allies and networks over the last year. We're certainly in a different position entering 2023 than we were entering 2022 - and this new year, we have some better idea of the timing of the Frontier/Stronghold update.

There is no doubt however that Olde Delaware could have emphasized his position more in the debate - perhaps a missed opportunity. It's a tough line to walk for a candidate known for his passion, you are right that it's important not to go too far and I think Olde Delaware certainly didn't do that.

@Writinglegend , what are your thoughts on a Vice Presidential debate? You've run for President 9 times now - have you ever thought "wow, that Vice Presidential debate won me the election?" Or are VP debates more fun than important?

Speaking of Vice Presidents, I'd like to invite Vice President @Istillian to join us for his thoughts - my understanding is that he's down under catching a flight, but on the flip side, would love his insight into the OD/Lloenflys debate and the value of a VP Debate!
 


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my understanding is that he's down under catching a flight, but on the flip side, would love his insight into the OD/Lloenflys debate and the value of a VP Debate!

Thanks for the question PhDre! Bouncing off of some of Glegs comments, I do think the big thing I'm noticing after reading back through the debate is the huge potential for things to drastically change for Europeia during this upcoming term, and our candidates preparedness to deal with those changes (especially Lloen, who admittedly mentioned his run was inspired by wanting a competitive election.) So I do wonder if possible foreign affairs challenges or staffing problems may upend a lot of our candidates goals, and destabilise the general momentum throughout the term (which is worrying given the current activity issue.) My second takeaway was a more positive one though, and it was that we did see that both candidates really do have an optimism and drive to attempt to invigorate a steady increase in particularly domestic activity under their visions.

Speaking on the first point, if we have big announcements on things like F/S (where I highly doubt we'll see a release date, but there is always the potential for more information at the least) or we have an initial bump of activity under the PA that takes the attention from citizens out of our ministries, we very may well see quite a stir of public opinion against our candidates very open stances on the debate issues, and an absence in staff availability. I for one am curious to see how flexible our candidates actually are when confronted with making decisions that may go against their firm stances on publicly divisive topics like mandatory recruitment, F/S, and the PA, as they really weren't afraid to tell us their feelings on them in this debate today.

Overall though I really didn't see anything that changed the playing field for us because of this debate; I agree with Gleg that OD lost some opportunities to steal the show with his pro-Frontier stance, and Lloenflys played it relatively safe and didn't go after OD on any possible platform weaknesses, though that may be because of the healthy camaraderie between the two.

In terms of a VP debate, we are dealing with two veteran players here in Sopo and Kuramia, both of whom served a half term each this last term, so they have recent experience in the executive and a good understanding of where the region is at, as well as their past years of leadership to back them up - so on that front I think we're fairly safe with these picks.

That being said, I do think it could have been beneficial to see a debate to then get an idea of their stance on upcoming issues, and if their opinions have been swayed in recent times, even their thoughts on things like the Radio/Comms merger and how that will affect their focus (given both of their past passions for these ministries), then also to see how that would play out with the level of support they would need to provide to the top half of their ticket. Generally speaking I don't think that VP debates are necessarily game changers, but in this instance who am I kidding, I think we'd all love to get these two into the ring for a fight.
 
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Thank you @Istillian for your thoughts while I slept the night away! Speaking of things that happened while I was asleep, lots of new endorsements coming for Lloenflys in the last few hours - did the campaigns finally realize this was an actual election?! Endorsements include President Icarus, Interior Minister Vor, and Gorundu.

@Pichtonia , can you read between the lines for us? Are there common threads here, or is this last minute endorsement cycle expected during a competitive race?

@Writinglegend you've run a few campaigns. How good of a sign is it for the Lloenflys campaign to secure the outgoing President's endorsement? Recall that it appears Icarus would possibly defeat either candidate in a three way race - whether that speaks to Icarus's continued political strength or a lack of enthusiasm over the current field is unclear.

Back to Istillian...
So I do wonder if possible foreign affairs challenges or staffing problems may upend a lot of our candidates goals, and destabilise the general momentum throughout the term (which is worrying given the current activity issue.)
A key moment of the debate (in my mind) was when Lloen was able to get OD to agree there is no silver bullet for activity concerns when asked about staffing concerns in Comms. An artful dodge, but I do wonder whether either candidate can square their ambition with the reality in communications or elsewhere. Perhaps F/S will indeed be the solution! That being said, at least in comms, I was surprised to see what was envisioned compared with the reality of our staffing situation, and the answers provided by our candidates.

One final thought on the debate - its possible that with no ENN Liveblog (a debate tradition) momentum from the debate will be harder to obtain, as the citizenry was less engaged than normal. Only a handful of citizens tuned into the live debate, so we should downweight the impact that debates typically have.

Finally, whether you think the debate changed hearts or minds or not, modern elections are usually determined by GOTV efforts with less engaged citizens. Here, I think it comes down to the social connections of the Vice Presidents. Can Sopo engage with less active citizens, or will Kuramia's ERN background give GOTV the person touch that the Lloenflys campaign could really benefit from?

There are more than 60 votes outstanding in a Presidential election , and our Pre-debate poll only attracted 27. OD should be encouraged that Europeians who are less excited about the current direction of the region are more likely to support him - maybe this extends to non respondentss. Lloenflys has to be excited by securing President Icarus's endorsement, now he has to hope that he can get as much mileage as he can out of this last minute support.
 
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It is obviously a good thing that Lloenflys secured the endorsement of the outgoing president, but this should not be a shock. Recall that OD explicitly went after the Icarus administration in his platform regarding executive communication, pointing out that no midterms were posted only to be correct later by President Icarus with direct links to all of the midterm posts. That moment just might come back to haunt OD. It also should not be a surprise considering Lloenflys explicitly stated his administration would not reasonably move away from the pathway set in stone by President Icarus. This endorsement makes a lot of sense.

I just woke up and am now waiting for polls to open! What are we thinking will be the turnout this election, @PhDre ?
 
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My turnout prediction is a shot in the dark - it's always hard to put your finger on the pulse of how many Europeians will show up on election day. If I had to guess, I'd say below 64 - this is the number who showed up in the November 2022 elections in a tight three way race. My thought is that we had three gotv efforts in November, so we should see lower turnout relative to then. Our activity has not improved since then, another risk to the downside. Finally, our Senate elections saw 54 voters. So I think we'll see more than 54 but less than 64, and if I had to guess, it would be in the upper half of that range. So let's go with 59-64.

@Writinglegend the alternative is to pull up the citizens list and start counting out active or near-active citizens. I know you've mentioned this as a GOTV tactic before.. What are your thoughts on turnout?
 
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Polls are OPEN and Europeians should exercise their right to vote in the January 2023 Presidential Election.

I for one am excited to see how the early vote goes, as Lloenflys continues to pick up some new endorsements. Sources tell me that the Lloenflys campaign was very aggressive and proactive in their GOTV strategy, so let's see if that early GOTV effort will pay off as we kick off voting.

I also will note that the salvo of endorsements started by Olde Delaware appears to have been stiffled by a flurry of endorsements for Lloenflys - remarkable given the relatively quiet pre-election activity and interest levels. I mentioned this elsewhere, but I would be interested to see how either candidate (or both) would fare against "Re-Open Elections." Lloenflys pointed to a lack of competition as a significant factor in stepping into the race, but are Europeians satisfied with the choices in front of them? Endorsements seem to suggest the answer is yes, but the late coming endorsements makes me feel... maybe?
 


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Boom. Olde Delaware picks up the HEM endorsement, who says "I think OD has presented a solid platform in this election, has demonstrated a proactivity and eagerness for this role, and is supported by perhaps the strongest possible VP in Sopo." I think the OD ticket certainly searched for balance in their ticket - will Sopo's VP strengths help push Olde Delaware across the finish line? It's an exciting start to the race, with voters streaming in early!

I would also flag that the People's Assembly Referendum Debate thread is now available. Both candidates were opposed to the formation of the PA, with Lloenflys actually voting against it. Given the lack of choice for a pro-PA President, the voters didnt really have a choice here. A third candidate who was supportive of the PA could have made a real difference in this race. At the same time, Sopo has been a vocal supporter of the PA... perhaps a slight edge for the OD campaign on this particular issue but hard to say.
 


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It's too early to read into this, but about 30 minutes into voting, we are running 9 votes behind the Monkey Writinglegend turnout 30 minutes in that race, which also came out around the same time on Friday morning (EST). Not a great sign for activity or enthusiasm for this election, as I've previously wondered. I wonder if candidates wish they had that magic bullet now... or plans for what to do when they can't find that magic bullet.

Turnout overall in the Monkey Writinglegend race was 66 72 voters, so we are on pace to come in short of that. Not surprising either, and in line with my pre-election prediction. @Writinglegend , I'm getting pretty good at this!

EDIT: Correction, turnout in Monkey Writinglegend was 72, not 66. Thank you to our fact checkers working diligently to prove me wrong.
 


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@Pichtonia , can you read between the lines for us? Are there common threads here, or is this last minute endorsement cycle expected during a competitive race?

I think most of all, @PhDre, this shows an active effort on behalf of both tickets to get out the vote - and possibly the endorsement. I heard candidates have been making rounds, and I think that's exciting. I especially love those endorsements that come with a good reasoning, and feel like they want to convince me to vote for the endorsed candidate as well, but every endorsement is great. Because it's like a vote before the vote, where you want your ticket to appear the most popular. And so once the first endorsement is out, that's opening the flood gates to more. After all you'll want your candidate, at the very least, to be just as popular appearing as the other.

It's interesting that the endorsements seem to show a bit of a generational divide.
 


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An hour into the election, candidate Lloenflys leads Olde Delaware 17-10. Turnout (27 voters) is well below the Writinglegend Monkey race (43 votes at one hour into voting), which suggests either votes are late coming in, Writinglegend is the GOAT GOTVer, or that enthusiasm and activity is down. My bet is a combination of all three, but I would not want to see a low turnout election for a number of activity related reason.

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As we can see, Olde Delaware has narrowed the gap over the last 30 minutes, and the race is still open. I reached out to the OD / Sopo ticket, and sources say that they believe that the race is still viable, and that there are a lot of undecided voters out there. Again, I personally believe this speaks to a lack of ringing enthusiasm surrounding this election, but others may differ...

Speaking of undecided voters, let's bring in one notable undecided voter, @Pland Adanna , Minister of World Assembly Affairs. PA, what is your take on the state of the race - how do you envision the next 23 hours playing out? How excited are you for this election compared to previous ones?
 


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Turnout is inching upwards, with OD now behind Lloenflys 12-17. With 29 voters, we are now a full 22 votes behind the Writinglegend Monkey June 2022 Presidential election, and 9 votes behind the November 2022 Presidential election. There appears to be somewhat lower voter enthusiasm than in prior elections. One source I spoke to suggested they may not vote at all, and wished that the option to 'Reopen Elections' (ROE) was available in all Presidential elections (currently it is only available in Presidential elections if there is one candidate) - The North Pacific was cited as an example of a democratic region which retains ROE for competitive elections.

Turning now to the Senate for the reactions of Senate Speaker @GraVandius and Senator @Boisenburg . How do you put this race into context - it's certainly a close one so far! Any thoughts as we turn into the third hour of election day?
 
Speaking of undecided voters, let's bring in one notable undecided voter, @Pland Adanna , Minister of World Assembly Affairs. PA, what is your take on the state of the race - how do you envision the next 23 hours playing out? How excited are you for this election compared to previous ones?
Thanks for having me on, PhDre! I have to say, this liveblog may be my all-time favorite EBC piece. Someone remind me to nominate it for EuroChoice 2023. Anyway, I expect the race to narrow but for Lloenflys and Kuramia to eke out a close victory. Lloenflys's late endorsement momentum and their slight polling lead are good news for them, but also my sources tell me that Lloenflys has been online since polls opened and Olde Delaware has not. I expect, once Olde Delaware comes online, that they will start to eat into Lloenflys’s lead. I personally don’t love punditry in real life for the lack of accountability though, so I’ll be very clear that this prediction is just a hunch.

I’ve enjoyed this campaign for sure, although it has felt a bit unusual. On the one hand, this election is extremely exciting in that we have two seemingly evenly-matched candidates with interesting ideas for our region. On the other hand, the campaign has been very low-key for a number of reasons: the relatively late start, the styles of the candidates, and the overarching ideological similarities between the contenders. Basically, on paper this is a nail-biter but really it seems that fewer people are on the edge of their seats. That said, we still have time for something crazy or unexpected to happen, especially with the undecided voters left out there. I will note that I still haven't voted.
 


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I have to say, this liveblog may be my all-time favorite EBC piece. Someone remind me to nominate it for EuroChoice 2023.

Aww shucks, well we might not have a frontrunner in this race, but we do perhaps for EuroChoice 2023!

Basically, on paper this is a nail-biter but really it seems that fewer people are on the edge of their seats. That said, we still have time for something crazy or unexpected to happen, especially with the undecided voters left out there. I will note that I still haven't voted.
My goodness PA, do you really want to be flooded with candidate message spam? Well, that's certainly one way to attract attention on election day!

As of our last update, the race is now 23-17 in favor of Lloenflys. We are still well behind the June 2022 and Novemember 2022 Presidential races, but candidates are still, remarkably, receiving endorsements. What do we make of this continued surge of endorsements? My take is that a vote is a vote, public or private, and if you get 49% percent of the region to endorse you and 51% to vote against you, you aren't going to be President. Good thing I'm not the only participant in the liveblog! I'm reaching out to @SkyGreen to give his thoughts on the state of the race....

But not before we turn to the Olde Delaware campaign, which I hear is furiously pitching themselves as the political underdogs of the race. Sources close to the campaign muse:
I've been wondering if, you know, you're a more politically-minded player, OD's narrative is more appealing to you. He's worked hard to change the trajectory of his career, had a good showing in the last election, and in many ways, it's "time."

Is it "time" for Europeia to give Olde Delaware a shot at the Presidency? Will Lloenflys come out on top and secure Europeia's highest elected office?
 
My goodness PA, do you really want to be flooded with candidate message spam? Well, that's certainly one way to attract attention on election day!
I like the drama. Plus, I need help deciding. Unfortunately, the predictable message spam I've received continues to divide me. It turns out that we have two very qualified candidates in this race!
 


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The gap has widened to 24-17, making this race quite tricky for the Olde Delaware campaign. I'm a huge fan of private election day polls for this reason ... I think this race has become very hard for the OD campaign. I dont see that much enthusiasm for either candidate and frankly, there don't seem to be many voters left out there. They'd have to massively break in favor of Olde Delaware . This is one thing I've flagged in the past... it's just hard to have a nailbiter go for more than a few hours in even the "best case" scenario.

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@Writinglegend , feel free to chime in here as our expert election-participation - is this gap surmountable?
 
I'm reaching out to @SkyGreen to give his thoughts on the state of the race....
Hello PhDre, thanks for reaching.
Personally I'm very excited about this race, it's really nice to see two potential first time presidents battle it out, both of whom are such strong characters. I think regardless of how this race ends we will have a very interesting 70 days. I must admit I personally voted for OD, his underdog appeal did partially get to me.
I've only recently fully caught up on the election and debate, but I'm wondering if this election will also decide the F/S path for our region. That's one of the major things the candidates disagree on and I'm fascinated to see how that'll impact the rest of the vote.

I think the debate was interesting, mainly seeing how the two interact, with OD being known for his fiery temperament and OD for his more upbeat debating style, I've thoroughly enjoyed reading through it.

Both players seem to have mastered the art of effective GOTV judging by how they approached me, so +1 to both for that

I agree with you on this though PhDre, a private election would've made for much thrilling discussion, because we'd have to guess who is in the lead and we'd all inevitably be wrong. Nonetheless I'm excited to see how this plays out
 
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