No Rush, Superficial Nonsense.
Day 2,052, 23:03
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Published in USA 
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by
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by olivermellors
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We don’t want Ajay as president. I’m in.
If a few of us don’t game the elections, we will get Ajay as president. Hmmmmmm…..
It is that second part that has me a bit puzzled. I can certainly do arithmetic. I can certainly calculate that, if two or three candidates (besides Ajay) split the vote equally amongst themselves, we get Ajay as president. So here is my puzzle: why is it taken for granted that two/three excellent candidates will each attract a lot of votes.
I have view but I would prefer to have yours. Help me think this thing through won’t you?
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I think it's totally plausible for two similarly popular candidates to run against each other. Look at the last election, for example. Paul and Tenshibo were similarly popular, and split the T4 almost evenly amongst themselves.
Here's a few examples of elections where the AFA was not there, and the two candidates were very close in voting totals:
http://www.erepublik.com/en/main/presidential-elections/24/1309849200
http://www.erepublik.com/en/main/presidential-elections/24/1283670000
http://www.erepublik.com/en/main/presidential-elections/24/1291536000
http://www.erepublik.com/en/main/presidential-elections/24/1296892800
The last link is an example of how three similarly popular candidates can allow for the 30-35% vote of the AFA to actually win.
I think the position of people supporting Unity hasn't really been given the right light, as far as this argument goes. No one is saying that the second that Unity ends, the AFA will end up winning. I would even say that it's likely, for the first few months, that we would defeat the AFA candidate. However, instead of winning by 60%-30% margins, we would only win by about 5-10% the times that we would win, and worst case scenario, a particularly contentious election arises, and we have a situation where the AFA leader actually does win. If the AFA wins a CP election, that serves as a rallying cry for the people supporting them overseas, and renews their interest in the PTO itself.
We're entering the last stages of the PTO. With the Serbian gold mine entering the fray, and the American Wipe, it's likely we can defeat the PTO once and for all. Yet the morale of their supporters is just as important as ours, and the one thing that could rally them again is a CP victory.
It might not seem likely. We probably could beat the AFA candidate 9/10 times straight up if we gave it a shot. It's the 1 time they do get through, like last August, that serves to be the problem. That could be the nail in our coffin.
thank you for a very sound and well thought out reply
I'm surprised you're surprised by this assumption, oliver. You know how things work in Canadian elections. Sometimes there is a candidate that is head and shoulders above the rest and he or she wins in a landslide, occasionally even earning a majority of the votes.
Most of the time, though, you'll have one side split the "progressive" vote - up until the last election it was usually the NDP which would siphon off enough votes from the Liberal candidate to allow the Conservative candidate squeak by with a victory with around 40% of the votes cast in that particular riding. In the 1990s we saw the same situation on the right side of the spectrum where a majority of Reform/Canadian Alliance and Progressive Conservative votes would have beaten a Liberal candidate if they had voted for the same candidate.
Now what you seem to be suggesting is that people are expecting a much closer three way vote, close to a 33%/33%/33% vote split. That particular scenario is more rare, and presumably what would need to happen to allow an AFA candidate to win. Should it be taken for granted that this will happen? Maybe not but if you have two, let's call them mainstream, candidates with near equal amounts of support it is not out of the question that they will split the combined mainstream vote nearly 50/50... which is what happens in US Presidential elections. That's probably why Americans expect a vote split like that to happen in game as well, I'd say.
It's not my place to say what your country should do but if you guys are dividing yourselves between two camps - the AFA and everyone else - then it might not hurt to have a primary election of a sort among the latter group in order to find one candidate that everyone on that side can stand behind in the elections, just to be sure that one mainstream candidate will be elected. Sure, it's not as democratic as having a completely open election in game but in such a scenario safety is not guaranteed.
hi chochi, always great to have your consistently intelligent and thoughful input.
That a near even split can occur is beyond question. The actual question is: why is it (should it be) taken for granted that it will, or is likely to occur. We have this Unity thing here in the eUS, where all the top parties get together and nominate a single candidate to run against the hated PTO threat AFA. Now, such a "defensive" stategy is justified by guaranteeing election of the "safe" candidate. It assumes that running two great candidates would not yield that same result. Indeed, it offers a guarantee instead of a likelihood. The way I have approached it is to ask "what is the likelihood". And that question is appropriate because the guarantee may come with a price. It may be a very high price to pay in order to avoid a highly unlikely event. Moreover, there are some "unspokens" which I think exist and which should see the light of day: things about the trust we have in the electorate and in the candidates and in the process.
Again, thank you for your contribution and, as usual, I send
kind regards
This whole is more about the current state of mind among the players and especially the members of the T4. For a long time they are fed with the unity being our salvation. It is hard now to get any other thing working. To get two candidates in the run would be to admit that the concept is wrong.
If the primaries could be organized in-game by popular vote it would at least have more validity because of a larger reach to all players.
I have been thinking much the same.
here is a possibility:
Proponents of "Unity" may unconsciously believe that the mass of voters don't really think - they just click the candidate endorsed by "their" party. If you extend that thinking a bit you get what we already have: a small group which honestly believes that their voice represents that of others. That is what the "weighting" thing was all about. Simply a possible explanation for some curious behaviour. After all, a primary that involves the whole population is usually called the in game election, not a primary. 🙂 .
"After all, a primary that involves the whole population is usually called the in game election, not a primary. 🙂"
True 🙂