View Topic

I am more concerned about the voter turnout if we were to implement a different voting system. We tried it once (though it was a mock voting for the different voting system), and those who voted dropped from 20 to approximately 6.

I foresee more people voting via PM, but I'd expect turnout in an actual election to be similar.

I am more concerned about the voter turnout if we were to implement a different voting system. We tried it once (though it was a mock voting for the different voting system), and those who voted dropped from 20 to approximately 6.

I'm not sure if that second statistic counts, though, because it was explicitly declared a mock election and thus fewer people may have taken it seriously. There's no way to judge the voter turnout of an instant runoff election unless we were to actually impose one with real consequences (that is, viable elected seats). And voter turnout might be higher in this instance because the Speaker is only one office rather than holding an election for five.

I remember that Wintermoot also did an election where he used the other system as well. IIRC many people acted in protest and either refused to vote or refused to rank.

^Yeah, there was an actual election one time with the other system, and we only had 6 candidates that term.  Nobody dropped out (though 3 including myself declined nominations), but it was the only term in which we adopted this system, and then switched back in later elections.

Click here

However, I don't agree that voter turnout drastically changed.  While in the Mock Election they were lower (but that could be just because it was a mock election)...in the later elections in February that used the same system, the votes were up to 12 total...which still is a decline against that 20 from December, but it's still 6 total votes higher than the mock election itself was.

We actually used the current system, but had the other system used in order to help get more accurate results.

Also in the Results list Wintermoot did say this

...we probably will not be switching to the STV system as a significant number of people had issues with the requirement to rank the candidates...

However it is important to note that this was a bit of an opinion as well (although he does actually run the election and knows the private votes) so there might have been more complications than we know about.

@Wintermoot, as arbiter of that election, should be able to provide his thoughts on this.

Actually, we tried this twice...first with a mock election on the December 2014 candidates, but in a separate unofficial  election after the official one. This is the election that only had 6 votes, but I think that was because the mock election wasn't advertised well.

Then in the February 2015 vote, we tested it during the official election. However, this was during a relatively inactive period in the region that saw a sorry election where no candidates campaigned, which was also a major region why some people refused to vote. If I remember correctly, most of the complaints I remember were over the fact that you had to rank all candidates and couldn't abstain. In the proposed system, voters would be able to leave candidates off the ballot, and those candidates would not get their vote no matter how far the instant run-off went.

On the other hand, the April and December 2015 elections saw double run-off votes, because the first runoffs themselves were tied. That is why I believe it's worth reconsidering the alternative vote...why spend upwards of a week to resolve ties that could have been resolved instantly?

Seeing as how this election is one of the most active in recent history, and there will be additional buzz brought on by this proposal, it might be a good idea to try once again. If the Monarch himself says it, it's probably going to happen.

I think we're at a high point with the amount of active members we've been able to keep involved as of about the end of November, thanks to our recruiting department's shock treatment. If ever there was a time to test such a voting method and finally determine its efficacy, now would be it, I say.

Out of interest, how long is this convention running for? I could try my hand at a proposal or two if I have time in which to write them I've seen a lot of things I like in various proposals so far, so mating them all to one overarching set up would take me a few hours at most. Not tonight, though; I have a dinner date

You've got plenty of time.  I think the convention runs for as long as it takes to find an idea/plan that we can all agree with.

Well, that most of us can agree with anyway.

It would be hard to test this with the current election, since almost everyone has already voted.

I'd say it runs until we've either adopted a proposal or concluded that it's not possible to get a reform proposal passed, which depending on how ratification goes is a very real possibility too.

Well if activity keeps up, it's something we could try again with the next elections.