Future Elections - Discussion

cavebear · November 8, 2002, 14:56

Given the recent exhaustive election for President, perhaps it is time we reconsider our election procedures. I see several options:

1. Drop the banana (I'd hate to do that, given tradition and the importance of active "none" voting).

2. Plurality wins (just the most votes instead of having to get more than 50%).

3. A tie goes immediately to the Cabinet for decision.

4. A prejudice for the candidate who has not held the position previously.

5. Darkness' Edge decides, since he has retired from politics.

6. Candidates send "rock/scissors/paper" choice to designated individual.

7. Ask Ming to flip a coin.

mrboo123 · November 8, 2002, 15:44

I like 1, 2, and 3. What the hells "prejudice"??? No to 5,6, and 7.

Darkness' Edge · November 8, 2002, 17:07

I don't think this is very likely to happen again.

There's no need to drop the banana or have a plurality - neither of these would have affected the result.

However, for deciding deadlocks, it would be wise to either
a) have it go straight to the cabinet, as to avoid the nine-day wait for a president
b) toss a coin

H Tower · November 8, 2002, 17:29

At the direction of the librarian of the index, this commision was charged with analyzing the presidential election for the month of November in an unbiased report.

The commision finds that it is easiest to break down the election into three parts to talk about; the initial three way election between Hydey, Darkness' Edge and Ixnay37, the runoff election between Hydey and Darkness' Edge, and the final runoff election where the ministers voted.

In the proceedings of the general election, we the commision found that no irregularities occured, All candidates wishing to be included in the election were properly named, the poll lasted the specified 3 days and was posted by the correct member of the october cabinet, vice-president Darkness' Edge. Since no one candidate received a majority (50%+1) of the vote a runoff election was properly called for by the country.

In the proceedings of the runoff election, the commision find s that several irregulatires arose which may have influenced the voting. Initiall, a runoff election poll was posted by a private citizen of the country, this thread was rightfully closed on the basis that all election polls are to be posted by the vice-president. Despite the noble gesture off the citizen who posted the poll to speed up the election process, the commision belives that had the poll been allowed to stand, a dangerous precedent of allowing anybody to post election polls would have resulted.

The next irregulatiry that occured involved another election poll posted by another individual who did not possess the constitutional right to. Under a strict constructionist view of the guidelins, the second poll should also have been closed. However, based upon the fact that vice-president Darkness Edge had been absent from the forum in excess of 48 hours, the forum moderator took it upon himself to declare this second poll legitimate by making it a sticky thread and changing the name to OFFICIAL Presidential runoff poll. When interviewd by this commision, forum moderator H Tower gave his reasoning for accepting the second poll and making it legitimate. "Well, I closed the first poll because it had been posted by a private citizen. I accepted the second poll for two reasons: 1)vice president Darkness' Edge had been absent fomr sometime, and a period of time had also elapsed since I closed the first poll, and still no official poll. 2)The second reason is because I felt that although, it wasn't a legitimate poll to begin with, I thought the person who did post it, the outgoing president, had the most legitimate right to post it, second to the vice president of course."
While the commision accepts H Tower's reasoning as having merit, we feel that he still overstepped his rights in choosing one over the other. Regardless of the irregularities of the second round, the commision does not feel that that the events that transpired affected the election in a significant way. The forum moderator closed the first poll so quickly that only a few citizens were able to vote, and it was revealed in the second poll, that both had revoted again.

The commision found the final stage of teh election was the most irregular of all. This is mainly because there was nothing in the guidelines and no precedent of what should be done. We applaud the engenuity of the solution proposed by -JRabbit of having the ministers cast a secret ballot to break the tie. However, the proposal was, in the intrest of time, not presented to the people. Instead both candidates expresed their approval of the plan and the secret voting began.

Again, in the intrests of time, the candidates both decided upon a neutral third party (the forum moderator) to receive and tally the votes. The irregularities continued however because a member of the cabinet was absent for a period of time and the forum moderator who was in charge of the voting refused to release the results. This lead the people to believe that the cabinet was just as split over who should be president as the people had been. Since this commision was not allowed to view the votes, all we can do is speculate as to what the actual votes were. The final irregularity was when the minister of Imperial expansion made public who he had voted for, thus creating speculation and premature congratulations when in fact the results were unknown.

After thourghly examing the events of the election and the oddities that arose, this commision has come up with several possible solutions that would remove or reduce many of the problems that occured.

1)The vice-president is to be charge with posting all election polls, however if 12 hours pass after the ending of a poll in a tie, the president is to post the runoff election poll.

2)The ministers' secret ballot should be adopted as the official third tie breaker.

3)The ministers vote should be only 36 hours long. The time would begin from when a neutral third party sends a PM to the ministers that they need to vote.

4)The ministers' secret vote counter should be a regular poster on the forum who is niether a cabinet member or a candidate, first the forum moderator, then the outgoing president, and then the vice president, whoever is not involved first hand with the election.

5)The vote counter should not begin to count votes until either all ministers have voted or the 36 hour time period has elapsed. This will allow all ministers to vote and keep all of the ministers' votes a secret.

6)If teh ministers' vote ends in a tie for any reason, the vote counter wil flip a coin to decide the winner, however, he will not announce that he flipped a coin, he will announce the reult in the same way as if the ministers had picked a winner.

H Tower · November 8, 2002, 17:30

cavebear beat me to this, i was writing my "report" inbetween classes this morning

-Jrabbit · November 10, 2002, 22:21

yeah, whatever. it's just a silly game we play, and no lemurs were killed.

(But i must admit it would have been pretty funny if Darkness' Edge had turned out to be the winner, especially after atomant's public announcement of his choice.)

To me, situations like this are what keep the C2DG interesting...

H Tower · November 10, 2002, 22:52

allow me my roleplaying then, i've got to find some fun from just being a citizen

James Adams · November 11, 2002, 06:24

Great commision plans, I agree with them, it is fair and thoughout well!

-Jrabbit · November 11, 2002, 09:51

Quote:

Originally posted by H Tower
allow me my roleplaying then, i've got to find some fun from just being a citizen

Yes, please do. That was my point.

atawa · November 11, 2002, 11:49

Quote:

Originally posted by H Tower
1)The vice-president is to be charge with posting all election polls, however if 12 hours pass after the ending of a poll in a tie, the president is to post the runoff election poll.

2)The ministers' secret ballot should be adopted as the official third tie breaker.

3)The ministers vote should be only 36 hours long. The time would begin from when a neutral third party sends a PM to the ministers that they need to vote.

4)The ministers' secret vote counter should be a regular poster on the forum who is niether a cabinet member or a candidate, first the forum moderator, then the outgoing president, and then the vice president, whoever is not involved first hand with the election.

5)The vote counter should not begin to count votes until either all ministers have voted or the 36 hour time period has elapsed. This will allow all ministers to vote and keep all of the ministers' votes a secret.

I agree

Quote:

6)If teh ministers' vote ends in a tie for any reason, the vote counter wil flip a coin to decide the winner, however, he will not announce that he flipped a coin, he will announce the reult in the same way as if the ministers had picked a winner.

Flip a coin/dice, whatever, I can agree to that but I think the people have the right to know what happened

cavebear · November 11, 2002, 14:25

In the very early days of computer gaming (actually, even before that when using post cards), we had a system for "dice rolls" or "coin tosses" that was beyond suspicision and put no burden on any 3rd party. We assigned a well-reported or official source as our guide.

We used the last digit of the officially reported temperature in some major city (Paris, London, whatever) or the last digit of the trade volume on the New York Stock Exchange as a random value. Odd/even worked for coin tosses, and single digits worked for dice rolls.

Perhaps, in the spirit of democracy, we should skip even a vote by the Ministers and go straight to something like that. Or, use it if the Ministers tie in their own vote after a runoff election.

It is really uncomplicated once you try it, but if this seems too weird, I'll understand.

H Tower · November 11, 2002, 15:17

i think that if we really feel the need to shorten the whole process, skip the second runoff poll between the top two candidates and let the ministers decide, and then flip a coin. That way there wouldn't be a second 3 day poll.

cavebear · November 11, 2002, 15:51

I think that when there are 3 or more candidates for an office, the Citizens should vote among the 2 highest vote-getters. But when the banana is the only other candidate, a plurality should decide. If it is still tied (discounting the banana), we still need a method. I really don't care too much wehat that method is, so long as a generally democratic method is employed.