Part Two: The VoteReporter: You said that you had thirteen people who you expected to vote in favour of the proposal. Who were they?
Clyde: The thirteen were: 84285, Alfred F. Jones, Bacon King, Clyde1998, Dallasfan65, DemPGH, Eraserhead, Evergreen, H_Wallace, Hashemite, Morgieb, Oakvale and Peeperkorn. Perhaps I should've seen in the number that something would go wrong.
*laughs* But seriously, the main issue was getting people to vote - four didn't vote and one changed sides right at the last minute...
We'd made our list based on what we were being told by people and whether we thought we could convince them to vote in favour. But also we checked every voter to see if they would be eligible to cast a valid ballot - we didn't want the posting requirements to screw us over.
This was what made us more confident of winning - we had eighteen names on the 'No' list, but six could've cast a valid ballot - due to the posting requirements. Of those who could vote, we had: Blair2015, Cinyc, ClarkKent, Homelycooking, JoMCaR, Pikachu, Polnut, RGN08, Rpryor03, Smoltchanov and Winfield on the list. There was one invalid ballot from this group and one didn't vote. Two of the six ineligible voters did end up voting - which could've cost the 'No' vote on another day. I remember seeing our first "projection" of where voters would go that I got sent - it had Blair on the 'Yes' side.
*laughs* We had BaconBacon, Bore, Bronz4141, GM3PRP, MATTROSE94, NHI and Thinking Crumpet's Crumpet as people who we didn't know how they'd vote - although none of them ended up voting.
What we forgot, until after the voting booth had opened, was that there were two recently re-registered voters in the Northeast that we had forgotten to add to our list. Discussing it, we felt they'd both go No - and both JBach717 and Poirot voted that way. We would've had 13-14 on the eve of poll otherwise.
Had these two had not voted - it would've been 10-8 to the 'Noes', making the person who changed their mind at the last minute really important.
Reporter: Surely though, had that person voted 'Yes' instead of 'No', you still would've lost the referendum?
Clyde: Officially yes, but we would've claimed that Atlasia didn't have a mandate to govern the Northeast - as 50% wouldn't win a referendum asking the reverse question to what we were asking. This would've likely ended up in a second referendum - something that we were trying to avoid - to get a result with one side ahead.
Reporter: Ultimately, you lost 12-8. When did you know that you'd lost the vote?
Clyde: After the sixteenth cast ballot, Oakvale contacted me saying "
I plan to spin what's looking like a likely defeat for independence as not a No but a "Not Yet'". I agreed, stating that we hadn't had a shock vote - at that time - and we felt that we were only losing through our potential voters not casting a ballot.
I was just waiting to see if any of our non-voters were going to cast a ballot when the 'switcher' messaged me saying that he'd be voting 'No' on the basis that it could pass by a "razor thin margin", which would annoy a lot of people. The message also confirmed to me what I'd felt all along, that people could support this, if they could be convinced: "
[...] this is not dead. Read ilikeverin's post. That's like a mantra for independent regions. [...] there just needs to be broader support for it."
He was right - I did the numbers and I found we won a landslide from the left, but we'd failed to convince others. Any movement towards independence needed a broad base and we just didn't have it at that time.
Reporter: Following the vote, you resigned as Northeast National Party leader.
Clyde: I did. I passed over to Oakvale, as I felt he would take the party forward. The party fell apart shortly after, as we had nothing to keep us together after our failure and people left Atlasian politics.
About six weeks before the vote, I messaged the NNP members that I might even leave the game if we'd lost the referendum:
"
I just wanted to let you know that if we lose the independence referendum, I'll probably leave the game. I fear that my position within the game would become untenable - especially if people won't respect [...] the reason why we feel that independence would bring greater activity and more interesting gameplay to the region and the game as a whole. The way people are commenting about this makes me feel that I may become the story - and I fear that I could hurt any future push for changes to the game. [...] It's not that I think we're going to lose the vote (I think we'll win), but I feel that I should make my position clear to you before the referendum."
I decided that I would stay in the game to help with the Constitutional Convention and I've remained part of the game. The main reason for this is that the independence issue fell off the radar very quickly after the vote.
Coming up tomorrow, part three on what would've happen if the Yes vote had won and the future of the independence in Atlasia.