The partial PTO of the USA Congress
Day 798, 12:06
•
Published in USA 
•
by
•
by ligtreb
Quick Note, because I get asked this a lot: for the newbs out there, PTO stands for Political Take Over. The term is usually used when outsiders with questionable interests take over a country by getting elected in the government.
As has already been written about in a few other places, five unsanctioned candidates won Congress seats yesterday. Many of them have foreign backgrounds (from enemy countries), foreign shouts and foreign friends, none of them had a presentation. None of them had their parties' support, and many of them saw their vote totals rise near reset unexpectedly.
Let me first clear up a couple of things:
1) Do not be alarmed -- Americans still control 50 seats and over 90% of Congress, those five have no significant power other than citizenship requests, which we can and will monitor.
2) Despite what happened, helping out allies with PTOs always comes first before worrying about our own congress. With our population, it's really hard to PTO us completely, while it's much easier for a smaller country to be taken over (and it has happened many times in eRep history). Also, we will learn from yesterday to make sure this doesn't happen again.
There is good news -- once we started realizing what was going on last night, all of the major parties came together to help stop this. We overturned four other races with candidates that looked very suspicious, and nearly won a fifth.
The parties put aside their interests to do what was best for the country, and for this I am proud. The scene in #eus-congress in IRC was chaotic around between 23:45 and 23:59, but given how little time we had to prepare, we did a great job. It was encouraging for me to see that a country that had started to regress to the super-partisanship of the past came together. To the AAP, Democratic Republicans, Federalists, Libertarians, UIP and USWP thank you for your efforts.
To Dodgercatcher, Indrae, mjdiv, Rekeri and Talio Extremist, I am so sorry you lost your elections to these candidates. All of you would've made great congressmen, our Congress will not be the same without you.
There's two questions we need to answer:
1) What can we do to limit the influence of the five who were elected?
2) What can we do to make sure this doesn't happen again
1) These congressmen have not received Senator status yet on the eUS forums (not only where Americans hang out but where Congress does its debating and planning) and probably will not until we can be 100% sure they have good intentions for the USA. We will be watching every citizenship request they approve closely and look for any ill-advised proposal they make.
2) The only way to truly stop enemies from infiltrating our Congress is blockers. While I must admit I haven't liked the use of blockers in the past, I see the necessity for them now. Blockers are people who don't want to be in Congress but sign up to run, ensuring no one else takes the spot. This will be tough -- you'd theoretically need about 200 for 100% safety, but in reality, you only need a couple dozen or so as long as they're willing to be online late at night on the 23rd of each month so we can maximize where we send them to.
To any citizens who are not running for Congress and are NOT abroad as part of a military mission next month on the 23rd, I encourage you to talk to a Party President of a top-5 party and volunteer to be a blocker. You will be doing your part to ensure our congress is secure.
Game mechanics dictate that Party Presidents do not have the power to prevent unwanted candidates from being on the ballot unless there are two people who want the nomination. Many of these questionable candidates signed up late on the 23rd, I don't blame the parties for not stopping this, as a former Party President and long-time political election coordinator, this is really difficult.
Thank you all for reading, and thanks to all of you who voted abroad to help stop a PTO and to all of you who helped out last night with our Congress.
UPDATE: Tepwnzor, the UIP Party President, wrote about this as well.
As has already been written about in a few other places, five unsanctioned candidates won Congress seats yesterday. Many of them have foreign backgrounds (from enemy countries), foreign shouts and foreign friends, none of them had a presentation. None of them had their parties' support, and many of them saw their vote totals rise near reset unexpectedly.
Let me first clear up a couple of things:
1) Do not be alarmed -- Americans still control 50 seats and over 90% of Congress, those five have no significant power other than citizenship requests, which we can and will monitor.
2) Despite what happened, helping out allies with PTOs always comes first before worrying about our own congress. With our population, it's really hard to PTO us completely, while it's much easier for a smaller country to be taken over (and it has happened many times in eRep history). Also, we will learn from yesterday to make sure this doesn't happen again.
There is good news -- once we started realizing what was going on last night, all of the major parties came together to help stop this. We overturned four other races with candidates that looked very suspicious, and nearly won a fifth.
The parties put aside their interests to do what was best for the country, and for this I am proud. The scene in #eus-congress in IRC was chaotic around between 23:45 and 23:59, but given how little time we had to prepare, we did a great job. It was encouraging for me to see that a country that had started to regress to the super-partisanship of the past came together. To the AAP, Democratic Republicans, Federalists, Libertarians, UIP and USWP thank you for your efforts.
To Dodgercatcher, Indrae, mjdiv, Rekeri and Talio Extremist, I am so sorry you lost your elections to these candidates. All of you would've made great congressmen, our Congress will not be the same without you.
There's two questions we need to answer:
1) What can we do to limit the influence of the five who were elected?
2) What can we do to make sure this doesn't happen again
1) These congressmen have not received Senator status yet on the eUS forums (not only where Americans hang out but where Congress does its debating and planning) and probably will not until we can be 100% sure they have good intentions for the USA. We will be watching every citizenship request they approve closely and look for any ill-advised proposal they make.
2) The only way to truly stop enemies from infiltrating our Congress is blockers. While I must admit I haven't liked the use of blockers in the past, I see the necessity for them now. Blockers are people who don't want to be in Congress but sign up to run, ensuring no one else takes the spot. This will be tough -- you'd theoretically need about 200 for 100% safety, but in reality, you only need a couple dozen or so as long as they're willing to be online late at night on the 23rd of each month so we can maximize where we send them to.
To any citizens who are not running for Congress and are NOT abroad as part of a military mission next month on the 23rd, I encourage you to talk to a Party President of a top-5 party and volunteer to be a blocker. You will be doing your part to ensure our congress is secure.
Game mechanics dictate that Party Presidents do not have the power to prevent unwanted candidates from being on the ballot unless there are two people who want the nomination. Many of these questionable candidates signed up late on the 23rd, I don't blame the parties for not stopping this, as a former Party President and long-time political election coordinator, this is really difficult.
Thank you all for reading, and thanks to all of you who voted abroad to help stop a PTO and to all of you who helped out last night with our Congress.
UPDATE: Tepwnzor, the UIP Party President, wrote about this as well.
Facebook
Twitter
Discord
Comments
Proud of America: http://www.erepublik.com/en/article/proud-of-america-1167002/1/20" target="_blank">http://www.erepublik.com/en/article/prou[..]/1/20
Thanks Tepwnzor, your article was great as well.
Vote!
Voted. Last night it seemed all hell broke loose. But looking at it now, not so much.
Yours is better Lig 😉
I'm really not a fan of the entire voting process, at least for the US who has so many seats that don't have real people living there. 🙁
good stuff...
i like the blocker idea
Just as in RL USA, we come together when the need arises.
I'd sign up to be a blocker, if I can't run for Congress myself.
wkwkwkwkwkwkwk
If this was something organised I tip me had before them
I hatez PTO'ers soooooo much. Especially since they are frequently involved in using multis or exploits.
O7
Wally Wilson - what about your PTO in Belgium where jasonalwaysready won a seat?
*ATO
zolikins.
=3
Its a waste of time trying to PTO a top 10 country.
The will have the people has been thwarted by back-door political cronyism! You all ought to be ashamed of yourselves 🙂
This almost makes me want to come back, almost.
O7 to those who put their country before their parties and personal goals.
Indeed, they tried TO us last time but this time we were better prepared in eSweden.
Great work, thanks!
I'm a little fuzzy on one thing: If North Dakota has no candidates from party X, then a foreign player can decide to run and automatically be put on the ballot? But if two players try to run, the party president gets to decide? So the blocker is the loyal second candidate, right?
Do congress candidates have to be citizens? How did those people get citizenship?
What do we really need? To merge regions!
I realize that this has absolutely no bearing on anything, but for curiosity's sake, which states were PTO'd?
Thank you for trying to calm down the youngin's, ligtreb
http://www.erepublik.com/en/article/pto-attempts-and-esouth-" target="_blank">http://www.erepublik.com/en/article/pto-[..]uth-
africa-rants-day-798-1168873/1/20
Subbed, 93 more everybody!!!
"The parties put aside their interests to do what was best for the country, and for this I am proud. "
Me too. I <3 America!
only 45 🙂
Sub'ed...because you're getting close to MM.
It's a shame that this happened, however, I applaud the efforts of the parties, and am glad that they were able to prevent the loss of any extra seats. Good article.
Q5 WEAPONS FOR 0.62GOLD EACH ONE!!! DROP ME A PM!!!
Sub #986. MM is just a few clicks away, good luck in getting it ligtreb
One Thousandth Subscriber!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Congrats on MM!
They probably want to put Q2Hospitals in every state. Damn foreigners. They took our jobs.
"I don't blame the parties for not stopping this, as a former Party President and long-time political election coordinator, this is really difficult."
This is the best part of an article that is full of win. Well done all!
This is humorous. I voted for a blocker in eVirginia yesterday. He had no presentation, the other blocker had presentation that pointed to Feinman, the incumbent. I did so as a protest vote because Feinman won't listen, he considers himself totally entrenched in office, and he pretty much has nothing to do with eVirginia until he comes around - with the backing of the political machine - to troll for votes once a month. So I voted for Georgi Bonev, first out of the blocks a 6 AM that morning. I posted an article on my newspaper urging others to do the same and I went to work. When I got back home about 9 PM, Feinman was leading 3-1. A bit deflated, I went to bed. When I woke up, I saw that Feinman had won 4-3.
Now, let's be serious here. Can the party hacks who get elected to Congress and PTO the wasteland states every single month afford to get so very self-righteous when someone gives them a taste of their own medicine ? Ligtreb himself got TWO votes. That is hardly a mandate. He doesn't represent his state. He doesn't represent anybody or anything but the big five party presidents who, every single month, rig the congressional elections around the eUSA. There are just a handful of elections that are actually contested. So, I would hardly be proud of the fact that the party machines actually responded to keep even more hacks from being put of out office and replaced by blockers.
The answer is really simple - stop rigging elections to protect the incumbents. Every party needs to put up the best candidate it can in every state.
Samuel Seabury
It's impossible to contest any elections simply because we only have 3 regions that have large populations.
i will be a blocker.
Sell my account of Ejahan Str 7.22 and Comp and Org, and 11 talas:
http://www.erepublik.com/en/forum/topic/161673/i-sell-account-of-ejahan--" target="_blank">http://www.erepublik.com/en/forum/topic/[..]han--
This just in: Fortress strategy leaves America vulnerable to PTO.
If you look at your congress elections, you could have been PTOd with less than 100 "attackers" if they vote to good place at good time. You could solve this problem for next elections with building new hospitals. But I know you won't, so next time USA will be still a good PTO target!
Zabalint
> The parties put aside their interests to do what was best for the country, and for this I am proud.
Yes... its amazing how a nation comes together when under attack which is what we have seen for the past 4 months in India! Congratulations for thwarting the PTO plans but it is quite a concern that even a big nation like the USA has to face this threat. Surely something completely awry with the game mechanics. Voting rights should nto be given at such a low lvl as 7....not for congress at least!