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Please note: This article reflects the congress results pre-multi vote, so it's possible things could change yet.

With thanks to Thomas765 and Niemand with their help here.



Today is the 26th of the month; a notable day in the eRepublik calendar for a simple reason: We elect new congressmen on this day.

The purpose of this article is to provide you with as much information as I can about the elections we’ve just finished, to show you who was elected, where the votes were cast, and to give you some analysis of these items. Right here at the outset I should explain to you that this will probably be subjective; I’m the party president of The Unity Party, meaning that despite my intent at the outset to provide a balanced view, I will invariably look on past events and analyse using this perspective.

That said, I do hope you can get something from this article, as while I may have a subjective perspective in some areas, I have been around the block a few times in eRepublik; Country president in March and April, still working at the very pinnacle of politics, if I haven’t seen it or done it then it probably hasn’t happened! This is my third time serving as a party president, though it is my first in which I was able to organise a congressional platform.

On to what you came for then!



First: The Seats.

Here’s a very handy picture given to me by Niemand, a good friend of mine. It breaks down the votes well, and tells us how many seats each party was able to gain.



As you can see from this, the number of seats gained reads as:
TUP - 14*
UKPP - 11*
ESO - 10
UKRP - 2
PCP - 2
DI - 10

*if the normal XP rules come into play then Louth would change:
TUP - 15
UKPP – 10

Here’s a pie chart to show this information, along with some percentages of the overall result:



This gives TUP the lead for the first time since before our three month wipe, with a five seat lead over ESO and UKPP in joint second. UKRP and PCP both managed to elect two congressmen, while Dharma should be congratulated for electing their first ever congressman via ESO, perennial no-hoper Stefan1992.

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As PP of TUP here’s my breakdown of our party’s success. If you’re not in TUP or this doesn’t interest you, feel free to skip ahead to my vote analysis.


TUP Congressmen:

Dublin: Invalidation
East Midlands: Thomas765
East of England: Niemand
London: furdelance
Louth: mwcerberus (assuming XP rules come into play as they should do)
North East of England: Talon Karrde
North West of England: Mr Woldy
South East of England: McAfee01
South West of England: Stef40 and Jimbojoy
Wales: MikeylT
West Midlands: gocevojvoda
Yorkshire & Humberside: Kravenn
Wildcards: Alan Hammond (London), Paul Bates (London)

So it looks like we were able to get 15 of our official candidates into congress, including all three of our designated London candidates and both of our candidates in the South West of England. Niemand, furdelance, Stef40, MikeylT, gocevojvoda are all entering the UK congress for the first time, a fact I am very proud of as PP and I’m sure we all wish them well in their first term!




The Votes

To better analyse the voting for you, I’ve produced two graphs. The first, here, is a scatter graph showing the number of votes a party’s candidates received, compared to their total number of members in the party. The graph has been given a trendline to better compare these numbers.



As you can see, almost all parties find themselves right on the trendline, with roughly the same proportion of their members voting in the election. ESO and TUP buck this trend slightly, with ESO coming in significantly above the trendline, gaining more voters than could be expected and perhaps signifying more activity or more campaigning, with TUP showing the opposite and coming in below the trendline.

Interestingly, number of votes really hasn’t translated all that well into seats in the election; more on that later. Here is a second graph of analysis, this time a pie chart looking at the percentage of members that voted in the election:



Here we can see that ESO again top the activity scale, with a whopping 78% of their members having voted. It’s important to distinguish here that you don’t have to be a member of a political party to vote for its candidates, and voters will often go for candidates that they recognise, know or like irrespective of party boundaries. For example, Bigant, running in London, probably attracted votes from outside his party due to his work on the NHS for new players, for the reasons mentioned above.

Other parties did similarly well in turning out the vote, with Dharma being the low outlier at only 31% . This can be explained by two factors; first, that they were only running one candidate, that got in with ease, and second, that they were unable to run their own candidate due to not being in the top 5 parties, and so having to run poor old Stefan through ESO. Some in Dharma may not have agreed with this move and voted elsewhere, thus not appearing in the Dharma statistics.




The Analysis

To the Analysis then, I’ll talk about each party in turn and give some specific examples of my thoughts where appropriate. As I fancy a change, I’ll go in alphabetical order this time.



The Dharma Initiative

Dharma undoubtedly did well in this election, managing to elect their first ever congressman despite not being able to propose candidates within the game mechanics. The tactic of asking ESO for a spot to run was a good one, and allowed them to easily elect their one candidate. Just a shame it’s Stefan! Seriously though, this is quite a coup for them, and having already received a private forum this month, you’ve got to think they’re on the up.

Number of Congressmen: 1
Talon’s Election Rating: 7.5/10



Every Single One

ESO had a bit of an odd election this time. They did do well in a couple of areas, especially in turning out the vote (78%, impressive.) They managed to get ten seats, but I look at the electoral map and, based on the number of votes they really should have elected more, but strategy let them down. I can pinpoint two main areas of strategy that cost ESO this time: Running Bigant in London, and running too many candidates. I’ll deal with the second point first.
In a lot of regions, ESO ran two or three candidates, and this had the detrimental effect of splitting their votes. Let’s take Wales as an example. Here, ESO ran three candidates; Emergy Maxfell, George Norfolk and Dose027. Emergy was elected with ten votes, with George and Dose a way behind on five and four respectively. If they had just run two candidates, it’s likely that the second would have been much closer and could have been elected with a little more party support. This fact was repeated in several regions too. The second big mistake was in running Bigant in London. In this region, the dynamics are a little different due to the effect of wildcard candidates, in this case meaning 12 votes was enough to elect a candidate. Typically, big names draw in a lot of votes in London, whereas smaller names will have votes spread among them. In this case, Bigant attracted 32 votes, 20 over the minimum required amount, meaning that FragUK and James Funchal, also running under ESO in London, garnered much fewer votes and weren’t elected. So while ESO got out the vote, they didn’t translate this into candidates elected.

Number of Congressmen: 10
Talon’s Election Rating: 4.5/10



The People’s Communist Party

The PCP ran a fairly quiet campaign, I didn’t see much of a media presence from them, but their usual group of voters was around and helped them to elect two congressmen this time around. They used their traditional London support well, and ran a solid ‘on par’ campaign I’d say, probably the most normal campaign of those we’ve seen in this election. Not outstanding, but by no means bad. They concentrated votes well and didn’t waste too many on a wide range of candidates.

Number of Congressmen: 2
Talon’s Election Rating: 6/10



The Unity Party

The Unity Party ran a smart campaign. They had a lot riding on this election; their place as the top party in the UK under threat by ESO, not in terms of number of members, but certainly in terms of political power and capability to elect. Having lost to ESO in the previous congress election, a win was a must for them to even consider it ‘on par;’ and they duly delivered. Taking advantage of tactical mistakes by ESO and the vulnerability of UKPP candidates in the morning, TUP were able to elect the most congressmen this time. That said, it was by no means a perfect campaign. Normally we see articles promoting candidates before the election, but despite plenty of individual manifestos we didn’t really see any all-party articles from TUP, something they should look to rectify for next time. Additionally, we’re still seeing a lot of old faces in TUP. They did manage to elect five first time congressmen, but they have very few players in the ‘middle’ bracket and so have plenty of work to do in bringing through this next generation.

Number of Congressmen: 15
Talon’s Election Rating: 7



United Kingdom Progression Party

The UKPP ran a good, positive election. They used their number of votes well, and elected a good number of congressmen. A standard campaign with a decent media presence, UKPP are doing well. That said, I do have two points to pick up on from their campaign; one in their control, one not. Firstly, their roster of candidates lacks the big names that ESO and TUP can boast. They aren’t really a party that seems to push its members on to be ministers and they don’t really have anyone in with a shot of winning the CP’s chair either. They need to step it up and get their members more involved in the UK, and I suspect their fortunes will improve. The other aspect not really in their control was a morning ‘Daychange’ vote operation. Both TUP and ESO were able to gain ground and seats from UKPP right at the end of the election using tactical votes from players online at the time. UKPP’s candidates were left in a vulnerable position and they didn’t have the votes available to secure them- perhaps that’s something to think on for next time.

Number of Congressmen: 10
Talon’s Election Rating: 6.5/10



United Kingdom Reform Party

The UKRP are sadly a shadow of their former selves. In the past they were able to compete with, beat, and be beaten by the best the UK had to offer, a real heavyweight party in UK politics. This time around they were able to elect two of their members into congress, and were close to electing two more. With the number of votes they had available I suspect this was probably one candidate too many, though that said if these votes had been distributed more evenly they could have gotten all four. Appleby, for example, received 13 votes in Dublin, a conquered colony region in which typically fewer votes are cast. Conversely, Daniel Thorrold found himself unelected in London, where typically many votes are found. This can simply be put down to public profile; Appleby was CP last term so naturally attracted more votes. This was very likely out of their hands and so while frustrating, responsibility cannot be placed at the party’s feet. Their only real course of action for the future is to put in the hard hours recruiting new members to take up the mantle.

Number of congressmen: 2
Talon’s Election Rating: 5/10





That’s it for my analysis today, I hope you’ve enjoyed all 2000+ words of it and it gives you some insight into the congressional elections. Good luck, and happy e-worlding!

Talon Karrde
Ex-CP and current PP of The Unity Party