(Header image courtesy of Ervald at the Europeian Design Institute)
(Originally posted May 3, 2019)
ELECTION DATA Jan 2018 to Present
For my own curiosity, I decided to run some graphs of our voter turnout over the last year and a half (January 2018 to now). It looks like there's a pretty clear downward trend over the long-term, and an especially notable drop in July and August of 2018, when the "Summer Slump" occurred. Voting numbers picked back up slightly toward the fall and winter, but have either remained steady or dwindled slightly since then.
We can continue to keep an eye on this, but I'm not sure the Executive Split itself is a prime factor in our decrease in voting numbers from the "100"-ish voting numbers we used to get. It seems to have been the culmination of quite a few factors over time.
Someone shout at me if you want a copy of the spreadsheet with tables --
* -- Pre-Forum switch, there's no access to the actual polling data, so I'm extrapolating the number of Senate voters based on a given voter using 2/3rds of their votes in the Senate election.
This graph shows our Citizen Count in Red over time, took a big hit around the summer and the forum switchover, which has recovered somewhat. It took another big hit on March 1st when our Citizenship Posting Requirements went into effect, but has recovered there as well.
Our Citizenship numbers have gone down quite a bit in the past year and a half, as well as our voter counts. Naturally, they trend together.
However, looking at our Voter Turnout Percentages, it seems relatively stable, with a slight decline, from about 41% overall in Jan 2018 to around 38% overall currently. The reasons for this decline are actually narrowed into one specific category which we'll see shortly.
Our CA Chair election turnout is the lowest overall, presumably due to the low visibility of the position and relative lack of responsibility. It seems to be relatively stable around 28% of the citizenry, a low but respectable number.
The Executive Elections, surprisingly, have actually been increasing in voter turnout percentage over time, though very slightly. One thing I did not look into during this research was how Uncontested Executive Elections may have affected turnout -- I have the master data available if anyone wants to dig a little deeper!
This was the shocking news about the whole endeavor. The turnout for our Senate Elections have been getting steadily and significantly worse over time. I would say that this alone has been the reason for our overall decline in voter turnout percentage over time in the aggregate. Perhaps discussing ways to make the Senate Elections more interesting, or the positions themselves more interesting would be a prime target for waning interest?
More to discuss here, definitely! I'm glad to have found this information.
It was a pain in the ass to get this next one to format properly -- >.>
This chart basically combines all three charts discussed above, though in scatterplot form (don't ask, this took me like an hour to format properly)...
This shows the relative turnout compared to each other category. Executive Elections in Blue at the top (most turnout), CA Chair elections in Green (lowest turnout), and Senate Elections in Red varying quite a bit around the middle (erratic, though declining turnout).
It seems that Senate Elections used to attract a similar amount of turnout to Executive Elections, though they are trending very close to CA Chair Election levels in recent months, not a good sign.
With a few more FM elections under our belts, I decided to update this with the last few months' election data --
Despite the slight decrease in voters over the past few months, I'd say there's a surprising stability to our voting numbers. Perhaps a sign that the vast number of idle citizens that are removed due to the Citizenship Activity Requirements amendment can no longer be driven to the polls in Get Out the Vote efforts. So, these last few months' voting numbers might be reflective of our most active and engaged citizenship base.
Citizenship numbers have been bumping along since the citizenship posting requirements went into effect (the first enforcement was in Late February, 28th or so). There was a wave of re-applications shortly after, and then another large cut in Citizenship numbers around May1st, with a few people re-applying after. The amount of citizens cut during each review has been falling, leading to a steadier base of "active, engaged" citizens having voting privileges.
CA Chair elections are actually getting more "popular" and increasing in voter turnout percentage, rising to meet the Senate voter turnout numbers.
I suspect that the real problem with these declining numbers have to do with Uncontested Elections in our highest offices. We really need to be emphasizing that everyone CAN be First Minister. Election times are critical for getting people engaged and talking about the ideas in the platforms. If our elections remain uncontested, then that spark doesn't happen.
We don't necessarily need an experienced hand, but I think the key is: new ideas and solid activity. The First Minister, as they no longer have to contend with Euro foreign policy, is really keying into a need for internal activity and engagement. And I think new ideas and personal activity are probably more central to the FM position than a lengthy history of ministerial experience. We should be encouraging newcomers to jump in if they have some ideas, that's what we need in a First Minister.
While the overall numbers have been decreasing slightly (on the left), the Senate voting turnout has actually picked up a slight bit when compared with our total citizenship numbers (on the right).
This graph basically combines the three voter turnout graphs from above, but it helps to show a convergence in our voting trends, perhaps showing greater stability and moderation in our voting numbers, as opposed to the wide swings in voter turnout that we used to have. I suspect the greatest factor there has been the citizenship posting requirements, which has removed most of the non-engaged citizens, removing the possibility of large GOTV efforts and swings in vote counts.