[Inside Government] Midterm Senate Satisfaction Poll Analysis






Midterm Senate Satisfaction Poll Analysis

Written by Seva



Introduction

The Senate term is already more than halfway through, and according to tradition, the Europeian Broadcasting Corporation (EBC) recently asked citizens how well they feel our Legislative branch has performed so far. Note: this poll only includes five out of the six senators currently in office, as the now former Senator Common-Sense Politics (CSP) was only replaced by the newly elected Josi a week ago. This term has not nearly been as controversial as the previous one, however, you can still expect some juicy comments and perhaps surprising results. Overall the poll received only 19 respondents, which was 2 fewer than the previous Senate satisfaction poll. You can read more about the 75th Senate of Europeia here.

Overall Senate Approval

This Senate as a whole has been one of the more popular Senates, with a staggering approval rating of 84,2%. Only one respondent indicated dissatisfaction with the Senate, which, combined with only 2 respondents strongly approving of it, reinforces the general impression of an uncontroversial Senate that does its work diligently but without many breakthroughs, which is arguably what the legislative branch needs after two extremely action-packed and intense terms. The comments do not give any more insight, mostly stating that the Senate is quiet but is doing what it has to.


Senate Speaker Darkslayer

Speaker Darkslayer, serving his third term as a Senator and first term as Speaker, receives an approval rating of 79%, which is twice as much as his predecessor did. His performance was strongly approved of by 47,4% of the respondents, and only one other senator managed to get the same strong approval. Having been seen as the natural successor to former two-time speaker Lloenflys, there is no surprise Darkslayer has excelled in the role. The comments paint a picture of a very competent speaker, with only one indicating some sort of disapproval that is rather directed at Darkslayer's job as a senator than a Speaker.


Senator Aexnidaral

Next up is Senator Aexnidaral, one of the more experienced senators. His rating is 73,7% - 26,3% very satisfied - and no respondents expressed dissatisfaction with his work. Aexnidaral is the embodiment of this Senate - everything he has done has been very quiet, and he has been far from the spotlight. Comments reflect his quietness, and one respondent had expected more activity from Aexnidaral.


Senator Forilian

First-time Senator Forilian returns an approval rating of 68,4%, marginally lower than any other senator, and the highest disapproval rating as well. This might be explained by his controversial suggestion to accelerate Cabinet confirmations, without waiting for the sixth senator as Speaker Darkslayer decided. Although Forilian consequently ended the heated discussion he had ignited, some respondents' answers were influenced by the incident. All in all, for a first-time senator, Forilian returns an impressive rating. Apart from reflecting on the aforementioned incident, comments indicate approval of Forilian's performance but do not highlight anything in particular about it.



Senator Istillian

Senator Istillian received the same approval rating as Speaker Darkslayer (79%). Same as Forilian, he is a first-time Senator; however, he had served in many positions in the executive branch before. Unlike Darkslayer, not a lot of people are very enthusiastic about Istillian's performance, with 26,3% of respondents strongly approving of it. Only one comment was submitted about Istillian, indicating that he exceeded expectations of at least one person.


Senator Malashaan

Such a lot of good things have been said about Malashaan that it is a nearly impossible task to come up with anything original to say about him. He returns an approval rating of 84,2%, the highest in the Senate, and shares the first place with Darkslayer in terms of "very satisfied" answers. Malashaan has served countless terms as Senator and Speaker, and it is no surprise that he has excelled in this Senate as well. The comments were generally very positive, including one that claimed Malashaan is the best senator so far, though some respondents pointed out his support of Forilian's decision about the Cabinet confirmations, and one unreasonably complained about inactivity.


Re-election perspectives

Unsurprisingly, more than 50% of respondents are ready to re-elect the current Senators, though Aexnidaral and Forilian do not receive as much support as the others.

Who do people want to see in the Senate next term?

A relatively low number of people have been suggested for the 76th Senate, compared to previous polls. Candidate in the previous election Seva and Minister of World Assembly Affairs SkyGreen24 each received the support of 3 people; now-Senator Josi followed with 2 comments mentioning them; promising newcomer Androxis, retired multiple-time speaker Drecq, and Maowi, who is currently on a leave of absence, were each mentioned once.


 
At the risk of starting this off again, I feel the need to correct something here. I did not try to rush a confirmation or support trying to force a vote on it. I believe my statements on the matter were clear. I opposed the Speaker's decision to set a blanket timeline and apparent unwillingess to discuss where we should draw the line (e.g., hypothetically, if RON won, how long would we wait for a seat to be filled before proceeding? If the by-election were 2 days out would we wait?). I understand this was largely due to a misunderstanding, but all of my initial commentary on the matter boils down to "why would we shut down discussion of this when it's exactly our job to set the rules?" I also opposed trying to overturn his decision, which I made pretty clear as well. I seconded Fori's motion to provide rapid resolution, but never had the desire to see the Speaker's decision overturned. In fact, I abstained on the vote because I thought it was stupid we had gotten to that point at all. Something I also made clear at the time.
 
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To be honest, I disagreed with Fori's decision in that case, but there's so much more to this Senate and these Senators than this rather miniscule affair. Quite disappointing and unfortunate that this seems to overshadow a lot of good work for someone.

Personally, I was pretty satisfied with the Senate -- thorough and timely questioning and votes during the nominations, good work on the Charter of Rights, several other good and interesting debates. I'm curious to see what's next for them and where the Senate lands at the end of term.
 
19 is... not a lot of respondents. I'm surprised this piece was written as it was considering the underlying data. A poll less than 25 people isn't really 'representative' of the population (and perhaps really just says that the electorate isn't engaged enough to take the poll). In the future, some possibilities to consider:
  1. Keep the poll open for more people.
  2. Your underlying data is misleading (too small of a sample), so skip anything that is directly quantitative (numbers-based). Drop the charts. If you need to talk about a group, you can use phrases like 'a majority of respondents'.
  3. Since you're not able to work with the quantitative data, use the qualitative data. Lean into the comments. Don't publish them directly (seriously, we should not be in the habit of giving a soapbox to the anonymous), but they are things we can trust/use, so angle toward them.
 
I see your comments and I feel like I should respond to them. Firstly, I wasn't the one who opened the poll and not the one who closed it, which shouldn't have happened but it did (though the last poll only received 21 respondents as well, so the low turnout is not a one-time issue. It is interesting because voter turnout in the election is nearly the same as in the summer.)
On to the second argument, I guess I'll keep that in mind but I don't see how having six more respondents would change things in a big way, it would after all be only 35% more. Maybe we shouldn't ever rely on charts, but people love numbers... fine, maybe I don't really have a good counter-argument to that.
About the comments - they are usually quite short and don't seem to give a lot of insight, excluding a few exceptions - at least that's the impression I get from reading them all. Not publishing them is one idea but I'd rather show what people think as directly as possible
 
Just gonna say, 35% is a large margin. It could definitely affect the results.
 
Very rough math, I come out with an error of about 20% with this sample size
 
Something else to consider is that the Senate had been relatively quiet in the weeks before this poll, but the poll happened to be open right at its most controversial point. It's likely these numbers have shifted since last week.
 
Not publishing them is one idea but I'd rather show what people think as directly as possible
We've learned from experience that 'show what people think as directly as possible' is pretty much a bad idea. There was a point in time where comments got a little... inappropriate, and there was a lengthy discussion surrounding them. The policy from the Ministry of Communications has varied from 'do not collect comments' to 'collect, but merely draw into the narrative' (my personal favorite) to 'just publish them raw' (which has been problematic). I want to be clear, I don't think you 'did something wrong' with regard to publishing the comments, I'm just surprised that we've either A) changed the policy again or B) nobody stopped you (myself included!) in the editor's phase.
 
My go to is to remove the comment with a note that the comment was removed (without removing the result).

I’ve faced flak for letting things go through with minimal editing so it’s always good to err on the side of caution when publishing for the EBC.
 
I feel compelled to make some comments on this poll, and the discussion about comments.

Firstly, I want to congratulate all the Senators this term so far. We've seen a fair few first-timers in the Senate for this term, and I just want to state it has been a pleasure to work with them. Likewise, it has been a pleasure to work with our more experienced Senators this term. Of course, people are entitled to freely comment (as they have done so), however, I do want to give the due credit to all of these Senators this term for their hard-work, and impressive ability to cooperate together. Whilst this Senate has been a little quieter, it is a pleasure to work with them, and we have managed to get a fair few things done. So while some may be confused/unhappy with the decision with regard to the attempt to overturn my scheduling decision, it is also important to acknowledge the entire contributions these Senators have made across the term.

Secondly, to comment on the discussion about poll comments, I think there needs to be a re-visit on the issue of anonymous comments. We have seen harsher comments before, but I am personally of the opinion that if the comment is not constructive, but rather, a negative comment on someone's personality or an unnecessary comment to make then that comment should be considered for whether we want to include it or not. That is just my opinion of course.

But anyway, thank you EBC for conducting this poll, and good job to the Senators.
 
mfw i run on a platform that i'm going to likely be a quiet backbench senator and someone comments negatively that ive been a quiet backbench senator 😩🥺
 
mfw i run on a platform that i'm going to likely be a quiet backbench senator and someone comments negatively that ive been a quiet backbench senator 😩🥺
We didn’t elect you to fulfill your promises!! That’s not what politicians do!?
 
Yes, we definitely should not publish insults or anything of that sort. As for other comments - I do agree that the writer shouldn't just blindly repeat what the previous article did and publish them directly. I believe there are situations where it's best to publish them directly, and situations when it's not - depends on many factors.
 
You're all gonna get Mandatory Recruitment!
These other people are so mean to you; surely the OSC needs to focus on defending your honor and so we won't have time to mandatory recruit
 
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