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Greetings eIreland,

During the November elections, I did an article covering the strangely high voter turn out. Whilst that article was done at the end of the final vote count, this time, I thought I will do one before the last ballot is cast and update it through out the day.

I want to also break it done into different sections, so we can get a better idea of the election as it happened, all be it from my POV (I will try and keep it unbiased if I can). As well add a bit of creative writing and humour.... after all, that is what our elections have been for quite some time, very creative and funny.




In the lead up to this months election, 4 political parties backed two different candidates, Trito an ex eIreland CP/Dictator who had return from a hiatus away from the game and Ethel a long time eIrish congress member but yet to be a CP. Whilst both players had a far different background, they both have had quite a few years in the game. From the outside look, Trito focused heavily on the political side of the game, whilst Ethel focused on the military side of the game. However both have crossed over as well as resided in different nations, during their eLife.



With the two contenders backed an endorsed by 4 of the 5 major parties, the election lead up proceeded. Both candidates started looking at getting their cabinets sorted out, election plans and strategies down pat.

As most elections do, they started off with smooth sailing and baby kissing by the candidates.

NOTE: Quite a few articles have been edited since they were released. While I will not comment on what was in them beforehand, I will only comment on the current content as this article is being written. However reading the comments, you might see the a link to any information that has been removed.



Trito hit the ground running, by releasing his first campaign article 9 days ago, where he set out his goals, his background and acknowledge the fact his last term as CP/Dictator was not too flash. From there he released a few more articles:

First for Trito: 'Lets Make eIreland Work Again'
Second for Trito: 'Transparency and Progress' Outlining his goals again, his cabinet and a few soft punches towards the current CP Kattiaa

But now this is where as per normal, the Irish elections started taking a sour turn. Whether it was just 3rd party influence or changing campaign managers, some hot and bothered articles started to come out. And Ethel also produced her first campaign article (Note: the articles from now come out pretty fast, so they will include a date/time on when they were published)


RTK Article: Day 3,661 Time 00.55 'A Denunciation of Ethel for CP' A view on political parties and multi's, Ethel's character ingame. Ending with the line 'A Vote for Ethel is a vote for failure'
First for Ethel: Day 3,661 Time 04.32
'Ethel for CP' Her announcing her candidacy for the CP run
Third for Trito: Day 3,661 Time 14.23
'Let's Make eIreland Free Again' Trito commenting on article word counts vs article votes, highlighting shouts in the feed about the Irish elections and talking about a Turkish conspiracy to influence the Irish elections
Rusty D Article: Day 3,661 Time 15.43 'Traitor!! RL vs eRep' A commentary on the eIrish elections and RL traitors

Note from here the time stamp and date will be RL time. Since I will be using an outside site to track the release of articles.

RTK Article: Day 29 Nov Time 00.36 'A Puzzle' Starts off with a link to Trito's 3rd article, basically a slander pecie about players back grounds and false information about Turkish connections to Ethel (claims she was a Turkish CP), Muli accusations and claims against admins
RTK Article: Day 29 Nov Time 03.00 'Community' Requesting who ever wins to resurrect the MoC job'
Rusty D Article: Day 29 Nov Time 04.18 'Community, say No to Xenophobia' An article calling for the end of Xenophobia in eIreland, also highlighting the acts of xenophobia in this current election
Second for Ethel: Day 29 Nov Time 05.58 'Its all about the cabinet' Ethel announcing her cabinet
Fourth for Trito: Day 29 Nov Time 08.31 'eIreland and Immigration' About having a Minister for Immigration if he wins
RTK Article: Day 29 Nov Time 17.02 'A Puzzle 2' 'A lot of rambling about Ethel, other parties, current congress members, bible verses, Asteria and a pile of other eRep stuff'

From this point, a few different articles were written. Some by the CP candidates, some by congress members, some by outside citizens. Whilst a few were removed, others had nothing to do with the elections/parliament, some did, which will be included here.

RTK Article: Day 30 Nov Time 01.17 'eAparthied/segregation eIreland' Article has since been removed from eRep
Rusty D Article: Day 30 Nov Time 05.32 'Code of Ethics/Laws Part 2: A formal request' A request to both CP candidates for a code of ethics/laws for any upcoming congress
Fifth for Trito: Day 1 Dec Time 15.29 'Foreign Affairs' An article going into a bit more detail for his plans in the DoFA area as well as touching on Immigration again
Third for Ethel: Day 3 Dec Time 04.42 'Fun Times?' Ethel talking about her plans for MoC
Sixth for Trito: Day 3 Dec Time 13.40 'Stagnation' An article highlighting his thoughts on eIreland and apparent stagnation for the past 7 months
RTK Article: Day 4 Dec Time 01.57 'The capture of eIreland Multies' *Note Original title has changed to this one. Article claiming current CP is a multi and other players are multi's, referring to use of them in elections
Fourth for Ethel: Day 4 Dec Time 04.42 'A Path Forward' Ethels closing arguments and responses to Trito's plans
Seventh for Trito: Day 4 Dec Time 08.58 'A Conclusion' Trito talking about the voting stats lately and "If the turnout for the next election is more than two standard deviations from the mean and my opponent wins, i.e. if there are more than 68 voters, I will consider the elections illegitimate."
Peruvian account article: Day 5 Dec Time 16.48 'Rigged Elections' ePeruvian player (with a Polish account) commenting/claiming the eIrish elections are rigged



As you can see there was quite a bit of news paper articles in the lead up to this election:

Trito: 7 Articles
Ethel: 4 Articles
Others: 10 Articles

While some could be considered news worthy to the undecided voter, some could be seen as hostile attacks on their competition, as well as articles deemed to influence the election. Either way it set the lead up to an election that will most likely cause more issues after the final vote, then the past ones.



With current voting still underway, it appears we have reach yet another record turn out (be it fake or real). Whilst this turn out number falls in line with Trito's comment "If the turnout for the next election is more than two standard deviations from the mean and my opponent wins, i.e. if there are more than 68 voters, I will consider the elections illegitimate." (unsure if he will consider it illegitimate if he wins, since his quote is about Ethel winning), there is still more time for more votes. But what is more interesting is seeing how the votes came in over the course of the past 22hrs...



As one can see from the above graphic, it appears that through out the day, the voting has been 'tit for tat' in style. Whilst this calls into question about multi use and by whom (more on that later), it also allows us to track the progression of voting.

As one can see in a time frame look at it:



As you can see (with in a 3hr time frame) the election could be considered neck to neck through out the day. But when we look at the full graph we notice the lead change a whooping 8 times and most of the time with a tit for tat vote.




Well after the 24hr voting period, eIreland had a turn out of 80 voters. These people/zombies/multi/bots casted there votes too:



Whilst my guess is this will change by the end of the day, as Admins look into votes cast and reported players, we can take some note of the figures. For instance, last month's questionable elections had 72 Voters which was only beaten by the election of Jan '17. But to top 80 votes, we need to travel all the way back to Dec '16 election period, where Fritzhill manage to secure more votes then Chance, out of the 81 votes cast.



Whilst the above figure will most likely change, it does raise some questions about the state of affairs currently in eIreland. We have to ask ourselves is trying to get 'your puppet/mate/patsy/toy' into power worth waking up the dead to vote? is it worth running the risk of being caught as a multi? are the votes with the bribes your paying to get them? or even 'Oh boy! oh boy! we are bucking the trend and growing'.

Whilst I will wait until the end of the vote count to type up my conclusion to all of this as well as throw in a conspiracy theory or two, I do want to look at the state of our internal shout feed. Where you see the anger, accusations, slander of players in regards to this election:



Is any of this really helpful? why are we more focused on who is leading the country, rather then fighting for our freedom? What will all this internal BS do to the country, when in all reality we need congress approval for a lot of the CP actions... or is this the thing, we are wiped so there will be no congress?



Whilst the election is still running, we cant really comment on what the next few steps will be with the votes, however I will endevour to update this article once the polls have shut and after the eRep Admin check of figures (I know myself and others have raised it with admins already).

In the update article I will also discuss other matters in regards to this election, which I cant really go on with now, since it is still in the voting count stage.

Rusty D
Congress Member for Omega Eireann