Electoral Reform Debate - Commentary Thread

[Southern Senator North Carolina Yankee]

A ten member party if unified and at 100% turnout can easily win that election by peeling off support from a largely party or parties and securing like minded Indies.

This is exactly what Xahar, Shua, Deus and now Cris managed to do running as Third Party members in the At-Large elections.

A district will have a limited number of voters, and pulling Smoltchanov from the NE, Angus from the Midwest and Torie or somebody like that from the Pacific won't be possible. Those indies are scattered as are the voters in a major party who would be willing to break ranks for such a candidate.

In a one and one race, the push will be for conformity. In an at-Large race, once your guys are in, a major party can then flex's its remaining muscle in trying to decide who gets the third seat. Or members will feel like they can vote for someone else or just go ahead and do that regardless, which happened in April 2014 with the Feds. Shua got EG and Sanchez, and they are far away from each other. That is where the indies stand their best chance, that played out in five of the last six At-Large elections.

[Southern Senator North Carolina Yankee]

I brought those figures up, as the district elections would be run via the same voting system as regional elections, and history has shown that in single-winner elections the incumbent tends to do better than newcomers, so newer players have less of a look in when compared to at-large elections.

This is an important point. For all the citing of the South as an example, lets not forget that Hagrid has been in the game three years, a cabinet member twice, Former At-Large Senator and most glaring, my indirect predecessor as Fed Chair. He had his own relationships and connections well built up in the region and knew some of those conservative voters far better than I did most likely. He may be an independent, but just like Sam Spade during his time as South Regional Senator, he is an indy with a well established presence and numerous connections to rely upon that a newer member, a third partier with fewer connections, etc etc doesn't have at his disposal.

There was a line in the old recruitment thread in 2008 about how successful the Sam Spade Party was and the response was that its success stemmed from the fact that Sam Spade was successful.


Knocking off incumbents is incredibly hard. Oakvale cited the presence of a Light Party Regional Senator in the debate. That light party member was a former JCPer, turned Liberal before he joined the Light Party. He was a Governor of the region and had served previously as the Region's Senator less than a year before. The seat was also open because Nix was running for President. He also later became a Southerner and a Federalist and served as Emperor last summer. Shame Scott is no longer here.

The only DR Regional Senator was Spiral, elected as a Federalist with the support of ME conservative machine.

The collapse of the DRs as a political force is also the culprit for that lack of representation at regional seat level more than the system.

Oakvale says the collapse of the DR's a political force is the reason for their lack of success at the regional level. What? The DRs won a seat in three straight at-Large elections and an At-Large Special. They never won a regional seat. They challenged Bore, DC al fine and myself and were defeated by incumbents from the dominant party in each region. Do you really think that a district would be any different in this regard?

[Southern Senator North Carolina Yankee]

If your an indy, would you stand a better chance pulling from the mavericks, indies and third partiers of like minded view in a narrow or a broader constituency? It is not just theory either, but the record actually does back this point up.

[Southern Senator North Carolina Yankee]

From the looks of this those opposed to the Amendment don't have a good case.  It is fully accepted by all players in this debate that the key, most important issue is competitiveness of elections?

I am not convinced they will be competitive, nor if drawn to be so that they will remain as such. We have seen ample evidence as to why such should be concerning.

[Southern Senator North Carolina Yankee]

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It's worth pointing out that my race against Deus in the comparitively left leaning northeast was 16- Bore 17- Deus and 1- Dallasfan which flowed to me. If any 1 of my voters had first preferenced Deus instead I would have lost. When you're talking of margins that thin it's not an example of any sort of structural impediment, but just bad luck.  If shua had run in the mideast for an open seat or maxwell in some southern district they would have won.

I think you got those numbers reversed. If you had sixteen and he seventeen and Dallas flowed to you, he would have beat you in a 17-17 tie by having more first preferences. Keep in mind from October 2013 through August 2014, The Feds actively worked against every laborite Senator who was being challenged regardless of who there opponent was as long as they were to the right. And Deus did in fact win an At-Large seat in the August elections, not come close and lose by one vote, but actually got in. Competiveness is fine unless you are constantly on the losing side of those 1 vote elections.

Junkie ran several times, even ran against bgwah and lost. Ran in specials and lost to the JCP machine. We finally got him in, during the December 2011 election. He was getting tired of losing and almost did not run in that election. A newby who cannot break through is more then likely going to leave the game.

Fun Fact, shua actually did lose an open seat, Mideast Regional Senate election everyone thought he had in the bag. That was during the three region RPP sweep of October 2011. The Mideast Feds are far more Conservative then the Mideast RPPers, was far larger and and had more conservative candidates running typically but in both cases were a plurality of the region's votes. Shua would have won yes, provided a Federalist was not running. Regions often default to the majority party in that region, provided that the candidate is moderate enough to win swing votes like MoPolitico in that election, TJ in June 2013 or DC al Fine.

Are Regional Seats better than the At-Large ones, hell yeah. But if the point here is about indies breaking through, districts and Regions are difficult unless they are a well established figure like Scott, Spade, Hagrid or the like in the region running for an open seat or against a weakened incumbent. Like it or not and all the other deficiencies aside, the At-Large balance out the pro-incumbency nature of the one on one seats.

[Southern Senator North Carolina Yankee]

This is misleading, because the sample size is too small to be significant. It is largely a function that the senators who, over that period, were the most active and the least likely to quit where regional ones. In fact it was always noticeable how few regional senators resigned due to activity. I'd suggest the high number of at large senators is because they kept on getting expelled for inactivity

This is a point that deserves to be highlighted. At-large elections have given us most of our least reliable and least committed Senators. On the other hand, it's virtually impossible to win a contested regional seat without working for it, whether you're an incumbent or not.

This suggests that there's something very wrong with these elections in terms of keeping at-large Senators accountable to their voters. Even worse, when an at-large Senator resigns, this usually triggers a national, single-seat election. These special elections are some of Atlasia's best, but they're hardly a boon to diversity and minority representation.

In two years the Feds have not won a special election for Senate. The Progressive Union and DRs did though. And DRs came within one vote of winning two actually. In the case of the former, Lumine who had challenged an incumbent in a hostile region demographically, got in later by pulling from the more diverse and less solidified electorate nationwide.

[Southern Senator North Carolina Yankee]

From the looks of this those opposed to the Amendment don't have a good case.  It is fully accepted by all players in this debate that the key, most important issue is competitiveness of elections?

I am not convinced they will be competitive, nor if drawn to be so that they will remain as such. We have seen ample evidence as to why such should be concerning.

Does the possibility of gerrymandering concern you?

No.

I think the dominant party in each will end up winning them and where there is not a dominant party, one will rush people in to change that, thus distorting the numerical equality as well as the competativeness.

[Southern Senator North Carolina Yankee]

This is misleading, because the sample size is too small to be significant. It is largely a function that the senators who, over that period, were the most active and the least likely to quit where regional ones. In fact it was always noticeable how few regional senators resigned due to activity. I'd suggest the high number of at large senators is because they kept on getting expelled for inactivity

This is a point that deserves to be highlighted. At-large elections have given us most of our least reliable and least committed Senators. On the other hand, it's virtually impossible to win a contested regional seat without working for it, whether you're an incumbent or not.

This suggests that there's something very wrong with these elections in terms of keeping at-large Senators accountable to their voters. Even worse, when an at-large Senator resigns, this usually triggers a national, single-seat election. These special elections are some of Atlasia's best, but they're hardly a boon to diversity and minority representation.

In two years the Feds have not won a special election for Senate. The Progressive Union and DRs did though.

You say that as if detracts from my point. I'm not sure how it does.

It is responding to your last sentence about the specials detracted from diversity. In both cases a minor party candidate defeated a major party candidate in a nationwide election because they had more swing voters at their disposal then they did in their one on one races.

[Southern Senator North Carolina Yankee]

So is the Labor Party planning to pass this to gerrymander the other parties out of existence or fail it to undermine their President? I'm confused.

Both, obviously!

#Laborcanhazitscakeandeatittoo

[Southern Senator North Carolina Yankee]

You cannot blame the Governors for wanting to leave time enough for the debate to occur before their citizens were voting on it. This is a big change and the people deserved a public discourse. Regardless of the implementation, I think it is more important that all sides are heard on this.

[Southern Senator North Carolina Yankee]

OK, first of all, some historical context: the system isn't inherently broken because the Federalists haven't won a special at-large in two years. Either the system has always been skewed against them or the Right just can't win at-large elections.

The organized Right (RPP/FED) didn't win a single at-large special Senate election from 2007-2012. The Populares won one and Jbrase (Independent) one another, but not the bulk of what comprises the Right. This means the organized Right has won 2 special at-large elections in seven years.

Even if it is the former situation, I wouldn't support changing the method of election just so the Right can be given an additional handicap in order to win elections, and I honestly don't think anyone who would advocate for the system using this justification would feel that way either. The Right needs to man up.

The Populares and DR both won special elections because the RPP/FED supported keeping a Pop/DR in a Pop/DR's hands and to keep it out of the hands of JCP/LAB. Also because the RPP/Fed like shua/Spiral.

We also never needed to win a special to hold one of our seats because our people practically never resigned with two exceptions. In the first instance, the chair's computer got fried and he was booted for inactivity from the Senate and we lost that seat to a JCPer named Marokai Blue, even though we ran Duke of all people (it was a different time). More recently when Tmth resigned we conceded a seat to the Progressive Union for the sake of keeping a conservative in and a certain crazy laborite out () and he later joined us a few months later anyway.

[Southern Senator North Carolina Yankee]

This is misleading, because the sample size is too small to be significant. It is largely a function that the senators who, over that period, were the most active and the least likely to quit where regional ones. In fact it was always noticeable how few regional senators resigned due to activity. I'd suggest the high number of at large senators is because they kept on getting expelled for inactivity

This is a point that deserves to be highlighted. At-large elections have given us most of our least reliable and least committed Senators. On the other hand, it's virtually impossible to win a contested regional seat without working for it, whether you're an incumbent or not.

This suggests that there's something very wrong with these elections in terms of keeping at-large Senators accountable to their voters. Even worse, when an at-large Senator resigns, this usually triggers a national, single-seat election. These special elections are some of Atlasia's best, but they're hardly a boon to diversity and minority representation.

In two years the Feds have not won a special election for Senate. The Progressive Union and DRs did though.

You say that as if detracts from my point. I'm not sure how it does.

It is responding to your last sentence about the specials detracted from diversity. In both cases a minor party candidate defeated a major party candidate in a nationwide election because they had more swing voters at their disposal then they did in their one on one races.

The Federalists have never won a special Senate election. You don't see the problem here?

Are you sure Nix? Matt didn't defeat Bore once??? I'm not sure.

I'd forgotten that the Federalists have been around for 2.5 years. How time flies. The Federalists won two special elections in early 2013, which should have been taken as an indication that they stood a strong chance of winning the presidency that June, as they nearly did. It's only since then that they've been locked out - a remarkable losing streak for what has consistently been either the largest or second-largest party in the country.

Of course candidates from smaller parties can win special elections, but that doesn't necessarily reflect ideological diversity among their winners. Special elections are a matter of A) making it to the final round and B) appealing to the median voter more than the other candidate who accomplishes A. But one of the supposed advantages of at-large elections is that candidates who would struggle to win the median voter in a single-seat election can still win.

It's not fair to the voters whose preferences elected a candidate that everyone gets to vote on who will replace them, and you would not expect this process to produce a Senate that is representative of a range of public opinion. Moreover, this is one reason why the Senate's expulsion rules are frequently the object of Yankee's paranoia. As he's explained himself on several occasions, a united super-majority of Senators could expel an unpopular Senator (who nonetheless enjoys strong support among 1/5 of the electorate) immediately after an at-large election, under the justified expectation that only someone who can win the support of a national majority will emerge from the resulting special election.

I don't want to get too caught up on this because it's a minor point, comparatively, and the fact that special at-large Senate elections are so much fun is enough to outweigh the fairness consideration, as far as I'm concerned. I'm just extremely baffled to see Yankee making the opposite case now.

As taste of what is to come. This is a big change, and every possible is going to be fleshed out beforehand, because obviously, the Senate was too busy with the mechanics to do so themselves and spend more then a few posts on the proposal itself (which begs the point about a uniform Senate with little opposing views, something that would be worse with districts. The Senate should debate the philosophical differences too as well as difference views of the merits).

I will seek to provide the dissenting view where such is absent, and though this may often be devil's advocacy, I find the Senate is better with debate then just waiving stuff through.

Actually, I do share your point. But the problem is there isn't a good solution for it unless you want the parties to appoint the replacements in all circumstances. No system is perfect, but I also don't think it is a justifiable reason for going to districts, since as I have established, that at least with the at-large they can get in far better than with a one on one race.

[Southern Senator North Carolina Yankee]

50% certainty that it did work at least until this:

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for a

50% chance of Sanity

[Southern Senator North Carolina Yankee]

This Senate coming up is going to be just slightly different.

Fortunately, for as much as I have played Gettysburg on the union side in Sid Meier's Civil War, I have played the Tobruk and Wake Island scenarios of Battlefield 1942 quite a lot as well. And I typically win, usually with the aid of excessive amounts of C4.

[Southern Senator North Carolina Yankee]

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You know, this keeps on getting repeated as gospel, but the idea that independents and minority parties are better served by at large elections than regional ones is just empirically not true.

The trouble is, it is empircally true. How many regional Senators have the DRs and CRs elected? None. They have elected three AT-Large Senators though. A party of that size  that doesn't break through, chances are won't last and we know what will happen with districts (see first Senate).

You can get 20 people more easily from five regions/districts, then you can from one. That is especially the case for an indy facing a member of a party in a one on one race. You can harp on all your one vote victories over every other party, but you miss the point that you still won that race every single time as a member of the dominant/power party in the Northeast. The same thing will occur in districts that is why At-Large seats balance out the regions rather well in this regard.

We don't need ten one on one races that elects all the same type of people to the Senate albeit by 1 vote each.

[Southern Senator North Carolina Yankee]

Actually, like the vast vast majority of atlasia I do not know what happened in the first senate, but a quick look at the senate list shows this to be woefully inadequate at proving a point because, in the senates after, i.e. when atlasia had a chance to actually develop, there was a far more mixed spread.

True, once Atlasia had a chance to develop, but it does concede a point that the right needs organization or at least more effort to win whereas left or center left is the default choice.

Once again, in your figure you are citing the Independent Senators like Torie, Scott, Sam Spade and Hagrid. These are people with well established support and connections, as well as conditions in the region that made it possible. How many instances like yourself for instance, a non-controversial incumbent being challenged by a third party or a indy, did that third party or indy win?

Not every incumbent is going to be as crazy as Friz (not to be confused with Fritz), or as hobbled as I was in January. Not every indy or Third partier is going to have the well established institutional support that Scott (Light), Spade, Hagrid, Torie and many others had or had the potential to build on short notice.

A third partier, partiuclarly one that is either left or right leaning has a better shot pulling from all the regions, then winning that median voter in the Northeast. I contacted people on behalf of poirot, who just would not vote for him. There was always that voter who would normal vote right, but wouldn't vote for a Deus. When you have fewer voters to pull from, you have less options to win unless you already connected to a majority of the region's/district's voters. This is where the imballance and lack of competativeness will be created and this is why we are better off with half at-large and half regional then any other combination.

I do remember when HappyWarrior or Ben would take the Mideast and though the races would be close such incumbents weren't defeatable whilst running and only once they retired did the right regain that seat. The presence of two conservative At-Large Senators, another regional Senator or two helpedp reserve some semblance of a balance. With districts you could see five center-left incumbents who are all unbeatable by the left or the right.

[Southern Senator North Carolina Yankee]

I don't disagree with any of that (apart from the third paragraph) but the same is just as true for at large elections.

Neither Jbrase, AndrewCT nor Wormyguy were unknown quantities. It took very special circumstances for Xahar and JCL to win an at large election (although they were largely unsuccessful for reasons other than ideology).

And, given that the points you make are just as true for at large elections as regional ones, it's clear there is no real difference in how they represent indies, which suggests that, as that's their supposed benefit (because everyone agrees their actual elections are duller than watching paint dry) they should be scrapped.

There was no region that would have elected Wormyguy in 2011 or 2012. He pulled libertarians from all over the nation and won because of that in an At-large election. He is a perfect example of the point I am trying to make, actually. The same goes for 20RP12 who faced the same problem as well by the time he was elected At-Large in December 2011. For the left, Antonio, Xahar and a few others would have been shut out of a one on one seat at the time as well.

JBrase would have won in 2012 in the South, but not in 2011 (with or without me running as Senator), when he won the special. He also then won reelection by once again pulling libertarians and other supporters from across the nation. The same is true for shua in 2011, shua in 2013 and 2014, Deus in 2014. AndrewCT would have won in the NE where he lived at any point except 2011 after Nappy took the place over. He is the ony exception that you list.

Thanks for making my point.

[Southern Senator North Carolina Yankee]

I don't disagree with any of that (apart from the third paragraph) but the same is just as true for at large elections.

Neither Jbrase, AndrewCT nor Wormyguy were unknown quantities. It took very special circumstances for Xahar and JCL to win an at large election (although they were largely unsuccessful for reasons other than ideology).

And, given that the points you make are just as true for at large elections as regional ones, it's clear there is no real difference in how they represent indies, which suggests that, as that's their supposed benefit (because everyone agrees their actual elections are duller than watching paint dry) they should be scrapped.

There was no region that would have elected Wormyguy in 2011 or 2012. He pulled libertarians from all over the nation and won because of that in an At-large election. He is a perfect example of the point I am trying to make, actually. The same goes for 20RP12 who faced the same problem as well by the time he was elected At-Large in December 2011. For the left, Antonio, Xahar and a few others would have been shut out of a one on one seat at the time as well.

JBrase would have won in 2012 in the South, but not in 2011 (with or without me running as Senator), when he won the special. He also then won reelection by once again pulling libertarians and other supporters from across the nation. The same is true for shua in 2011, shua in 2013 and 2014, Deus in 2014. AndrewCT would have won in the NE where he lived at any point except 2011 after Nappy took the place over. He is the ony exception that you list.

Thanks for making my point.

I think it's fair to say someone who won over 50% in a one on one at large election could be elected in most districts in the country, because if JBrase did so then there is no way he just won with the votes of libertarians. With regard to wormyguy I don't know what was happening in 2011 in atlasia so I can't comment on the specifics but, and I know me repeating this irritates you he was probably similar politically to Deus and he came within one vote of beating me in a region which, as you acknowledge has a centre left tilt. That to me suggests that libertarians have been unlucky rather than structurally discriminated against.

I never said he he won just off of libertarians in the special, I said he won reelection thanks largely to libertarians as well as some other votes he held from the special and members of the CID party, which he had joined. He won the special in a three way Indy-JCP-UDL race and received the support of the RPP, his former party the Populares and even a good number of leftists won over by his appeals on reforms. That result would have been impossible in either of the two regions where he had ties, the South and the Pacific because they were dominated by the RPP and JCP respectively. Hence my point.

Wormyguy was far more controversial. He once falsely claimed that someone was Hamilton amongst some other crazy things. Beyond that though, the Northeast region was dominated by the JCP in 2011 and the liberals in 2012 who had first Napoleon and then Scott as Liberal Party Senators. You really going to say that Nappy or Scott would beat worms by just 1 vote? No, it would have been a landslide.

It is not about independents on paper. I was on the ballot as an indy in Feb 2012! But you wouldn't dream of counting an eight term incumbent in your stats on the superiority of one on one seats for indies. Hagrid, myself, Scott, Sam Spade, Torie, are not "independent" in the sense that wormyguy or Deus or Poirot are independent.

Yes, unlucky in one on one seats, because except for when the Populares invaded the NE in late 2009 and Jbrase temporarily supplanted the RPP with the same party in the South in mid 2010, a major libertarian only party has never controlled a region. Now working through the RPP or Feds, Libertarians like PiT and Maxwell have indeed broken through. As DRs Maxwell did become Emperor, against a backdrop of no strong Federalist opposition I would point out just like Spiral in the Mideast becoming Governor.

Which gets me back to my point, "disconnected indies" have it much better off in an at-large race then running in a head to head race against a candidate from the dominant party in that region/district.

[Southern Senator North Carolina Yankee]

This is a funny argument for me, since the last time I ran for office I supported at-large elections. Given a proportional system and a wide voter base, I thought the at-large system should support more competitive elections and unexpected results. But, like on many issues, I was wrong.

I'm not going to bother responding to the Nays here point by point, but I want to drive the stake into one of their major fallacies. Any argument that at-large votes would benefit independents have to realize they still have to compete against establishment candidates in their races. I should know - I competed in one.

You competed in a special election, which as the yes side has aggressively pointed to, are more like district elections then full At-Large seats by virtue of being one on one race. The yes side cannot have it both ways.

If you had run alongside Polnut, you would have won in April. However, you ran against a party machine in two back to back one on one races and lost both. If anything, I think your example makes our case even better.