The How, What, and Why of the January 2009 Presidential Election
John Wycliffe
Uncle Sam and Desert Falcon were by far the most active campaigners, posting articles in their papers left and right and recruiting messengers to Get Out the Vote. A GOTV effort on behalf of Uncle Sam resulted in messages being sent to all the members of the USWP and the AAP. No such effort was detected within the Justinious campaign. Justin spent his time speaking of ideals and accusing party-line zombie voting for influencing the outcome of elections, however, with the endorsement of 8 political parties, it was this same party-line voting that would help him so much on election day. Uncle Sam wrote 5 election articles, each one of them detailing his policies. His running-mate GoBucks even made a significant effort to publish campaign material in his own revamped newspaper just for the election. Desertfalcon also put out four detailed policy papers prior to the election.
Election Day
The election was close throughout the day with the percentages of Justin and Sam floating around 30 percent each, with a gap of around 30 votes in between them. By the final hours of the election, there were still votes to be cast and the gap was small enough that it would have demanded a recount anywhere but in eRepublik (eRepublik: where voting is, actually, essentially 100% accurate). Approximately 8% of the vote would go to minor candidates, and a good portion would go to Desertfalcon, who stayed in third place throughout the day, but he would eventually withdraw his candidacy.
The Effect of Small Parties
The combined votes of the leftist parties running candidates that did not endorse Uncle Sam could have allowed him to win a large victory over Justin; however, two of these parties, the Democrats and the Greens, ran their own candidates knowing that they could not win, and garnered over 100 votes. 5 smaller parties also endorsed Justin, 6 if you include the tiny party of the last POTUS, Benn Dover. The Feds and the Illuminati also endorsed Desertfalcon, but this proved for naught when he dropped out of the race near the end of the day.
Political Oddities and Shenanigans
Ron Paul
Ron Paul, an active campaigner for Justin, sent out a mass message to members of the USWP called “The Voice of the USWP.” Therein, he claimed that the USWP did not have an official candidate and that scrabman, the interim Party President of the USWP had endorsed Justin. Neither of these claims were true. The USWP published an article and sent out messages to its members saying that Uncle Sam was the candidate of the USWP and the AAP. Furthermore, scrabman can be quoted saying this in response to Ron Paul: “I find this attention given to my opinion about the Presidential candidate to be silly. I'm nobody. Who would even care about my "endorsement". However, my party has endorsed Uncle Sam / GoBucks and that means that I've endorsed Uncle Sam / GoBucks as well. I've said so and I explained the same to Justin and MedyPi who I consider to be very good friends of mine.” It is unknown, and cannot be known, what effect Ron Paul’s message had on the election, but since it was such a close contest, it could be estimated that it could have quite possibly been significant enough to give Justin the election.
Withdrawal of Desertfalcon and Moishe
The biggest surprise of the day was nothing but the withdrawal of the Desertfalcon/Moishe ticket and their subsequent endorsement of Uncle Sam for President of the United States. Their statements can be found below:
Desertfalcon
“Well I was a bit disappointed in the turn out. I was favored to win in most polls in a close race with Uncle Sam but apparently the party line voting is too strong and even though I have great support from other parties I have fallen behind the might of the Lib and the USWP voters. That is why I am dropping out of the race and throwing all my support behind Uncle Sam. The reason I am doing this is because Uncle Sam actually campaigned and worked to try and get elected. Justin only released one campaign article before today that really did not have much content in it.”
Moishe
“Please note that while I was Desertfalcon's running mate I never attempted to tell the USWP `how they should vote. I've acknowledged the endorsement in every article it has been mentioned. Of course I also pointed out that USWP members are not zombies and do tend to vote their conscience. With all that said, as though it matters, I firmly endorse Uncle Sam/GoBucks.”
The Winner
Justinious would win the Presidential Election when it came down to the last few minutes of the election, in large part due to the support of party-line Libertarian vote. He came on top over Uncle Sam by only 20 votes, a less than 2% difference. It can be said that this election would have turned out differently in a number of scenarios. If one of the small parties running candidates had chosen to simply endorse, and if they had endorsed Uncle Sam, then Uncle Sam would have won. Either party, the Democrats or the Green Party, would have brought enough votes to secure a victory by about the same margin that Justin won with. Likewise, if Desertfalcon had dropped out earlier, and Ron Paul had not sent his fraudulent message to USWP voters, both of these factors may have turned the election around. Regardless of what could have been, we have what is, and that is President Justinious McWalburgson III.
EDIT: I apologize for any sense of bias that came through. I did not intentionally mean to characterize Justin and Princess's victory as solely due to Libertarian party-line voting, though it was a significant effect. The endorsement of Uncle Sam by the USWP, for balance's sake, was also essentially strict party-line most likely. However, Justin had more parties endorse him, and thus was likely to receive more votes. I would venture to say that most people vote with their party on eRepublik and the number of those who do not is not particularly statistically significant. Once the polling system that was mentioned in a recent eRepublik Insider article is in place, we may be able to see this more easily.
Once again, I am sorry if I came off biased with the party-line voting, and yes, I will admit to bias on the election issue, I was partial to Uncle Sam this time around. I don't have a problem with Justin or Princess (and perhaps I wrote this too soon after the election and my mind was not as clear as it should have been). What I am unapologetic for, however, is Ron Paul's message. That was blatantly wrong, and there is nothing biased about saying that.
To reiterate, there is NOTHING wrong with how Justin won the election, this is simply why I think it turned out the way it did. I respect Justin and Princess and they would have been my second choice for the election if that were an option. I do wish that I could have seen more campaign information from them, but that's past, and I will support our new President and Vice President.
Comments
I've the feeling ( without having check'd your profile ) that your opinion is rather biased, anywho, great article 🙂
good overall summary, voted.
good article, voted and subscribed!
Wow...bias...no vote for you. 😃
@Adrian: Isn't all reporting bias?
Action speak louder than words and I believe Justin is that kind of guy who is less talk, more work. I support Justin because of that.
this article makes you sound like youre genitalia. do you know who voted for who? no? then i guess you have no idea if it was party line or not. which party party lines more? any data on that? what is the matter with party line voting anyways... i would rather have someone who would govern as i wanted them too instead of someone who would do the opposite of what i wanted but wrote one MILLION more articles than my partys candidate.
Something that hasn't been talked about is that there were over 300 more votes cast then in December.
Leroy: Lots of n00bs have joined...
lol noobs. that exactly why I personally did not vote for justin or uncle sam. With all the new players joining this game and creating a larger view of the eworld you good old boys had better change your thinking on this or that power that you have will begin to change. In a way its just like racism, we where here first so we are better..... some people understand this and some dont. Beleive me when I tell you that unless you begin to welcome these new people with a much more open approach we will always have the same problems. Our nation is in a position to be a real power in this game both economically and militaraly.
It's not fair of you to imply that Greens and Dems "stole" votes from the other candidates. They got their votes based on their proposed policies.
Furthermore, 70+ votes for Peter Green prove beyond the shadow of a doubt that your "party line voting" excuse is just that, an excuse.
While I think this is an interesting way to look at it, it is important to remember that many of the major parties were divided in the selection process of picking candidates, so some of the nominations didn't reflect how parties would necessarily vote. I think in this election parties had more effect on zombie voters than in the past. It seemed to me that many of the actives were informed voters, making their own decisions. At least, I would like to think that's how it happened.
See the edit, I apologize for coming off the way I did on party-line voting, while I do stand by the fact that I believe it was a significant effect. No disrespect was intended.
@ Chahk Noir, I never used the word "stole" if I'm not mistaken, and no, I never edited that portion after your comment. I was simply putting forth possible scenarios in how the election *could* have played out.
Thanks for the apology. I didn't think it was all that necessary. I knew what you were trying to say 😃