Public versus Private Results in Voting July 2023 / Before-discussion baseline poll
Howdy everyone! Some great turnout on this poll. Hoping to get this information out there for the discussion on viewable voting results. It's quite a contentious issue and taking the temperature of the room will help us find a good workable resolution. I plan to run another one of these polls closer to the end of this discussion. If you responded to this poll, I would love it if you could respond to the next poll as well, we will be trying to find changes over time and see where we end up. Thanks!
Total Respondents: 37 overall, 36 on several later questions
Vote Count over Time:
Polling Results
With 56.7%, those who support public results in all or most votes has a majority. Those who support public results in "most" votes, however, tended to support quite a few middle ground options, as can be seen in the option results on which division of visibility would be tolerated later in the results.
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A plurality of the region, 40.5%, would prefer to see either fully private or fully public. Around 30% believes a compromise is preferable, and another 30% undecided or neutral on this, but may have fallen into supporting a compromise position, given the results of the "tolerated policy positions".
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Election Administrator discretion is rather unpopular. Though there is discussion on a separate panel of stakeholders who could possibly make some discretionary decisions, we'll see how that plays out. Perhaps a good new question for a follow-up poll.
Most Ideal Policy Position - no Majority result
The "ideal" positions are more equivocal than the topline policy stances. "All Public" and "All Private" have equal vote counts with 27.8% each. Middle ground stances in between gain more ground here and the median voter supports the current viewability policy in place. Though there is a strong tie between the third place position between having Senate/President/By-elections public, but split between Runoffs being public or private; private runoffs being the current policy.
--- Most Approved Policy Position - no Majority result
Given the strong vote results support the two "fully private or public" sides, the approval vote falls down on those same lines. However, in this result, it seems that the public results voters are more open to some concessions to private votes on smaller, niche votes like recalls, referenda, and runoffs -- whereas the private results voters seem to stick to their "All Private" support in this approval voting question.
--- Most Tolerated Policy Position -- a Majority result
I have theorized for months that Europeian voters have not been using approval voting to truly represent their support for compromise policy positions that the region would most support. I think that phrasing it as "approval" keeps both sides of the spectrum, to various degrees, in their respective camps and that makes it harder to find a good workable resolution on some questions. I have re-phrased the question to say "What policy positions would you tolerate" and I think we've found a better phrasing that allows people to truly reveal what positions they would be willing to live with. This results shows that even the private results voters do seem to expand their support to middle ground positions, pushing two positions to a full majority of support. Presidential, Senate, and By-Elections public -- Runoffs either private or public -- referenda and recalls private. These lineups, with the slight edge toward runoffs being private, show that the region is likely to end up supporting one of these two positions over a fully public or fully private system, despite the fact that these are the ideal positions of a plurality.
No other position, either under the Ideal question or the Approval vote question, do the voters show support above 50% apart from these two "tolerated" positions.
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One interesting thing I found in this polling is that almost all of the early votes were supporters of public view results. Almost all of the private view support came after the first 12 hours and only continued to increase in support from there. There is a strong correlation between speed of response in this poll and support for viewable results. It seems clear that the most active and available voting base wants to see results during the elections, where those who may not be as active or consistent in their activity support private results. Finding a workable resolution between these two sentiments will be tough because there are some fundamental differences in how these two groups may view our voting processes and the "excitement" behind the election results.
As I said in the beginning, I am planning to run this poll, with the same questions (plus additional questions that may arise during the discussion, along with some additional customization as suggested by some during this initial poll) in order to see how the policy support changes over time. I would love to see a strong showing for those poll results as well so keep an eye out for that follow-up poll.
I did not take the poll, because I did not see my preferred option. So we can add a couple of percentage points to the “open results” tally.
Public results for all elections/votes involving a person.
Private results for votes that do not (referendums).
What makes the public results option most compelling for our region is that elections are about the personalities and characters within our region. Keeping these results open makes Election Day much more fun and engaging for the entire citizenry. It promotes activity and engagement. Closed polls result in dull election days, with us just sitting around for tomorrow.
I think the best compromise solution would be just that: open results for any vote involving people. Closed results for those votes thst do not.
I did not take the poll, because I did not see my preferred option. So we can add a couple of percentage points to the “open results” tally.
Public results for all elections/votes involving a person.
Private results for votes that do not (referendums).
What makes the public results option most compelling for our region is that elections are about the personalities and characters within our region. Keeping these results open makes Election Day much more fun and engaging for the entire citizenry. It promotes activity and engagement. Closed polls result in dull election days, with us just sitting around for tomorrow.
I think the best compromise solution would be just that: open results for any vote involving people. Closed results for those votes thst do not.
I honestly felt the module of having public for first-round votes and private for runoffs had a solid practical purpose. Namely, with public runoffs people who often force a tie to carry the drama forward, which usually wasn't particularly productive.
