Talk Elections

As I've said before I don't think we should do elections as we do in fantasyland. I think the reasons for that are obvious, but I'll explain them later if someone wants.

Andway.

I wrote this last November. Quite crude but:

The GM gives each "candidate" (word is in brackets as it could easily apply to a PR list of some sort) marks out of a given number based on the following:

Demographics how much appeal (generically) a given party has to the various groups of people in the given area.

Campaign marks given for how good the campaign (both nationally and locally) is.

National Support/Swing how well the election nationally is going for the party in question

Personal Vote/Influence the first speaks for itself (though note that an incumbent should always score at least 1 here, unless mired in scandal). The second refers to endorsements by local notables and so on.

Fraud also speaks for itself. Only to be used if the candidate/party tells the GM that it is trying to rig the poll.

Demographics and National Support/Swing should be, by far, the most important factors (which is more important depends on the area and depends on the party). Fraud has the potential to be unlimited, but the larger the scale, the more chance of being found out (but that's a GM matter obviously).

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Examples:

Attlee with Morrison: D 10, NS/S 7, C 3, PV/I 2

Candidate A: D 8, NS/S 4, C 0, PV/I 2, TOTAL: 14
Candidate B: D 1, NS/S 7, C 3, PV/I 0, TOTAL: 11

Despite running a brilliant campaign in an excellent year for his party, Candidate B still loses because the demographics of the seat are so strong for Candidate A (who wins despite being a lazy party hack of the worst kind).

Henderson East & Clynes: D 10, NS/S 7, C 3, PV/I 1, F 5

Candidate A: D 5, NS/S 7, C 3, PV/I 0, F 0, TOTAL: 15
Candidate B: D 5, NS/S 3, C 3, PV/I 1, F 5, TOTAL: 17

An embattled incumbent in a swing seat cheats his way to victory.

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Obviously, vote totals, percentages, majorities and the like should be up to the GM to make up as takes his fancy. Candidate B in Henderson East & Clynes would get about 53% if you just converted the figures into percentages, but if the narrative would be better if that election was a suspicious blowout or extremely close then it would make sense to change the figures accordingly.

Hope all that made sense.

I like that idea. One question though. Would it work (with GM guidance) in 'landslide' scenarios, i.e if the opposition unseats the government and incumbents in style.

Sounds good, but I still think some of the vote should be determined by the players.

The GM should be elected.

Agreed. Some sort of straw poll maybe?

How about we make an ititial parliament-divided on left and right-giving each side 50% of the seats which are then divided by party registration, so, for example if there are 50 seats, the left has 25, of which 15 are Social-Democrats, 7 are Labour, and 3 are Greens? Those figures aren't final obviously. I feel that if we have a basic parliament to start off with, we have a basis for parties to win and lose seats. I like Al's basic frame a lot, btw, and I think the player's participation is obvious, ILV, in that we run the campaigns, have options re:fraud, and are responsible for PV/I, as well as being critical re:National results.

I suggest we might even have a parliament pre-constitution, or at least an Acting PM.

I can easily make up some election results, in detail and with maps, if you want. What electoral system are we using?

MMP

Please do :)

IIRC, we're using something similar to Ontario's MMP.

Curiously, we don't see to have agreed on anything. Could someone double-check that, just in case?
Either way; maps up tomorrow.

I'm up for.... anything really....

bump

The maps won't be by province but at a lower level (basically; I'm not the GM and am not willing to decide what electoral system we're using. But I'm going to try to add a load of detail to the background of this game anyway). And they will be done by tomorrow :)

Leading party by district, canton, ward, cantref or whatever:
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This is really just a pilot and doesn't matter much. Districts are not equal population, this is not supposed to be an FPTP election etc. The Franco areas were a bit of a problem for one or two reasons. Patterns mainly based on the stuff Colin wrote (very helpful in some areas, not so good in others) and stuff from the Party threads (ditto). A lot is totally random.
Anyway, hope to get the useful maps up tomorrow.

:)

What did you use to make this?

Considering I wrote somewhere (maybe on the wiki) that the PC is strong in North Antillia (and considering I'm the only member from there, if you take that in account), I find it hard to believe the PC wouldn't win in North Antillia. That's really the only fault I find.

Also, you forgot the Greens, they have 2 members now ! :)

Well since it seems like people are interested in this again I would be happy to provide, ie make up, demographic data, economic data, etc. that you need in order to create a true representation of what the political geography looks like.

Also if it does seem like this is actually going to take off, and I have time, I will write up the history that I laid out for Antillia.

I was speaking more directly, e.g. a direct vote, straw poll, or something of that nature.  That way each player would be assured of enough vote to earn at least one seat.  We wouldn't want anyone sitting out who wouldn't have to.

If that map holds I'm all sorts of screwed, unless that one tiny Tory smudge can carry New Wales, that being said, I'm not sure how it would work.

Ah, dammit, didn't notice that. But, as I said, this is just a pilot. The more important maps'll be party strength ones.


I didn't forget them actually.

As long as each party can win somewhere at this stage then i'm happy

Ahem...Al...do you need any addition statistics in order to come up with a better party breakdown? Let us not forget that Antillia came out of this brain of mine, probably why it's as crazy as it is. I may comment on the map posted a little later, just to see how it meshes with what I thought of when making Antillia.

This looks very interesting, I think I'd be interested in being involved in some way.

The main thing would be more information on the distribution of Franco's within each province.

Good point.

I envisage us as being a nation that's been through alot; slipped into dictatorship in the 1930's-50's and only clawed out because of modern pressures and the death of an aging . A bit like Spain and Portugal but 30 years too late.

Using that as a model gives us a good grounding; an authoritarian, statist (not socialist) culturally conservative government, that has probably had a slow death. It gives us a degree of small parties, some new some old but oppressed formed into left and right blocs.

If we view the nation as being a nation of 'opposites' may I suggest the following

left v right
liberal v conservative (secondary to above)
anti-clerical v clerical (not as important now, mostly historic)
nationalisation v privatisation (state controlled economy at present - where to now?)
centralised state v devolved state
internationalist v isolationist (we've been isolationist for decades, very few nations doing business, self reliant etc)
European v American (to whom do we look re trade, alliance etc - linked with above)

So for example the PRD would be - right, liberal, anti-clerical, pro-privatisation, pro devolution, internationalist and European.

I can't imagine the Labours doing well in Robera and the Conservatives holding constituencies in LeGran.

They do well in the white North.

These are not constituencies. They are sort-of like counting districts and have been drawn up to look like they might have been drawn by a pen-pushing bureaucratic idiot.

When are the next maps coming?

And what program do you use to make them?

Can anyone tell me as of yet weather I can ever survive as a Tory in New Wales?

Whilst we can edit the history of the SDP, I believe it is far stronger in Reginia and weaker in the North than that map would suggest. Unless, of course, the SDP district in Reginia is where 70%^ of the peiople live :)

Took this from the PC wiki article:

"The party has significant support in the English-speaking areas of North Antillia and New Ulster, where its membership is concentrated. Its support in francophone areas is next to inexistent."

Okay, well I think I said a few points about this before. In Robera they mostly make up the population of the interior and the coast east of Whitecliff. Whitecliff is roughly split between Anglos and Francos with the western coast being majority Anglo. The east is more Franco than the west due to the fact that it was originally settled by French speakers but was not as important an area to the British after they began to settle the centre and west of Antillia, unlike Port Valjean and Limmeria. In North Wales the Franco population is pretty evenly distributed but the percentage of the population that is French speaking is higher in the interior as opposed to the coast. Wellington actually has one of the lowest French populations in the province.

In Carnarvon the traditional French speaking areas are along the border with Arcadia, however in recent years there has been a large influx of "Mountaineers" into Richmond. The Franco population is now roughly evenly split between rural French near Arcadia and urban French in Richmond. Reginia has almost no Francophone population. Most is concentrated in Lorient proper with some on the border near Arcadia.

LeGran is completely non-Francophone. Most of the small Francophone population lives in and around Presque Isle. New Ulster has a Francophone demographic that is like Carnarvon, until the 70s or 80s most of the Francos lived in the mountains near the Arcadia border. Today though nearly 80% of the Francophone population lives in and around Alberton, most of it recent migration from poorer rural areas of La Francophonie. Hesperia has almost no Francophone population, around 65% is located in the mountains near the Arcadia border the remainder are urban transplants in Victoria and Coldwater. Arcadia's Franco population is almost entirely concentrated in the far west along the border with Limeria. There are almost none east of Capehaven and the population in Capehaven itself is incredibly small, maybe 2% at most.

Limeria is an interesting case. It's Franco population is rather evenly distributed. The most Anglo area of the province is the east and Port Valjean proper, except for working class areas which are predominantly Franco, the Anglo working class is smaller in Port Valjean than in either Richmond or Alberton. Highest area of Franco concentration is in the west along the border with Robera. The border with Arcadia is completely mixed, roughly 50-50 Anglo-Franco, with some very segregated communities along the border, British founded towns can be 80 or 90 percent Anglo, French towns 70 to 90 percent Franco. Arcadia is pretty straightforward. It's main areas of Anglo population are around the border with Limeria and in Charlesville. I would say roughly 70% of the Anglo population lives near the border with Limeria and the remainder mostly live in Charlesville, with a very small minority in Fort Rochier.

In Clairive the Portuguese population is mostly contained in mining areas, in Rocheport, and other service centres in the province. The rest of the population is reliably Franco with rural, non-mining areas having the highest porportion of Franco speakers.

As for LeGran, the entire province would likely be won by the left. Even in the far North the white population doesn't exceed 40% and in Presque Isle the white population is 29%, with roughly 18% of those being Portuguese speakers. Outside of the main urban areas, basically Presque Isle, the more northerly town of Gros Islet, and the North, most of the white population is Portuguese.

Having said this I can't really see the ACP taking any electoral districts in LeGran, unless there is some major vote splitting among the Indian community. Reginia looks too conservative, should be better territory for liberal parties, but this might be shown in a party strength map better than a "who wins each district" map. The Alberton suburbs look a little too conservative/social democratic but again this is probably more due to what information is given. I like the liberal dominance in the Fort Rochier/Charlesville area and the strength of the SoCreds in the west. Labour might have a little too much dominance in Robera, add a little bit more SoCred support IMHO. New Wales looks pretty good, I can't see the Conservatives doing well there with its mix of trade unionism and rural populism. As for Clairive, and I guess interior areas of New Wales and Robera, it would depend entirely upon the amount of support that the Franco population gives to Labour. I also like the last little tendril of the SoCred support in North Antillia. It is exactly where the Franco population is the highest and the overall population is low enough, and rural enough, to support SoCred.

I wasn't even aware that we had a wiki (actually I think I may have just forgotten about it). I won't change the initial map as that's a first draft, but I'll bear that in mind for the maps coming up now. Sorry.

I think we need to be more flexable. While I can see the need to generate a political landscape I think we are going about it the wrong way. Way need to establish demographics and voting behaviour first. Where do the professionals live? How do they vote on the issue? Which party/bloc appeals to them etc. This probably isn't as time consuming as it looks (as we already know how most people vote Europe wide anyway) and we already have some information to go on. It would be worth doing on a province by province basis.

This means that should a party collapse and another rise then we know roughly what the effects of that would be. It also helps us track the effects of the left and right bloc drifting too far to the wings or to the centre.

Actually it would probably take less time to work out than trying to work out party support patterns without that basic foundation. Good idea.

I'm working on a linguistic map based on your map and the descriptions we have. I've tried to keep things realistic and I'll post it later for inspection. It has the 'Englishers' hugging the coast etc

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Things are pretty uniform, but there are a few Portuguse minority outposts etc. Most areas are strongly one or the other the further east you go.

PS - It's more of a linguistic rather than ethnic map. It's first language (ie spoke at home)

Oh, wow. :)

Comments on how I see things for the RCA/SCP.

1. Robera

Given the linguistic oriented politics and social conservatism of the province, the province likely has four main parties competitive there with the Ralliement créditiste d'Antillia (Social Credit's Francophone wing) competing with the Parti Radical Democratique for the Francophone vote and the Social Democrats and the Conservatives competing for the Anglophone vote.

2. New Wales

The mining towns are probably contested between the Social Democrats and Labour.  Wellington is probably fairly diverse politically and the remainder of the province is a contest between the Social Credit and Conservatives.  Social Credit strength in New Wales comes from both its Anglophone and Francophone wings.

3. Carnarvon

Social Credit strength there is mostly in the Francophone areas of the north with the Ralliement créditiste d'Antillia and the Parti Radical Democratique competing for the Francophone vote as they do in Roberta.  The south sans Richmond is probably an SDP stronghold with Labour, the Progressive Conservatives, Social Credit, and the Greens taking what they can.  Richmond's suburbs are a contest mainly between the Conservatives and the Social Democrats with either the Radical Democrats or the Progressive Conservatives acting as teh primary third party in the area.  Richmond's core is Labour, Green, and PRD territory.


4. Reginia

Primarily a mix of Social Democrat and Conservatives, the Social Credit Party is present here, but not strong.

5. LeGran

Social Democrats, Labour, Greens vie it out here for the allegiance of the Indian majority, with the Conservatives being the primary party of the small white minority plus some upper class Indians.  This is the only province without a local Social Credit party organization.

6. New Ulster

The rural areas are a Progressive Conservative stronghold that the Social Credit Party would like to overtake. The Social Democrats are the primary party of the Alberton area, with the Conservatives, Social Liberals, and Labour being their opponent depending on the ward.

7. Hesperia

The Conservative and Social Credit parties vie for the rural vote here.  The loggers are staunch Labour supporters.  Victoria is a battleground for the Social Democrats and the Radical Democrats, while Coldwater is a mishmash of everything,

8. North Antillia

The Conservative Party and the Progressive Conservative Party lead here, with the Social Credit and Radical Democrats trying to pick up the less thoroughly conservative elements of Antillia's most conservative province.

9. Arcadia
Ralliement créditiste d'Antillia does well in the rural Francophone areas, competing with the Conservative Party.  A definite mixture of parties in the urban areas.


10. Limeria

As a fairly liberal area, the SDP and the hard left parties dominate, but the Ralliement créditiste d'Antillia does well along the Robera border.

11. Clairive

A Ralliement créditiste d'Antillia stronghold among the long time Francophones, with the local party being almost xenophobic at times about the Portuguese influx and the miners.

Summary

Looking over things, it seems to me that the SCP is a heavily Francophone party that uses its Anglophone wing to gain greater traction in national politics.

Strength is in Robera, New Wales, Carnarvon, Hesperia, North Antillia, Arcadia, and Clairive, with it always having some local offices and seats in the provincial councils. While it is trying to gain strength in Regina, New Ulster, and Limeria, but only rarely wins seats in elections there.  Even with proportional elections, the RCA/SCP doesn't bother trying to contest LeGran.

9. Arcadia
Ralliement créditiste d'Antillia does well in the rural Francophone areas, competing with the Conservative Party.  A definite mixture of parties in the urban areas.
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I would disagree here. Having a 'Francophone wing' doesn't make you a catch all party that can compete in Arcadia. The same is true of all non-Francophone parties. Never underestimate voters voting agaionst their economic self interest in favour of linguistic or ethnic self identification. PRD for example is also economically liberal ; it has the most right of centre economic policy (following the rule of thumb in western Europe that if conservative parties are economically centrist, the liberal party are further to the right) As such it is a party of urban bureaucrats, the middle class, civil servants (and thus strong in Charlesville) but also of landowning famers.

If I was being completely honest, I don't see the Social Credit Party performing well outside a few historic regions anyway on account of the existance of both SDP and Labour (who would do well in mopping up the economic left vote). It would also fair poorly in urban areas with a high cultural mix and a younger electorate. A party like Social Credit would only perform well outside the blocs as a protest vote or inside the right bloc as social conservatism seems to be fairly unique trait in the SCP.

From the unified information thread:


The SCP/RCA is a rural conservative populist party that is socially conservative and economically populist.  So I'd have to disagree with your assessment that the RCA couldn't be competitive in rural Arcadia.

I'll grant that as a while the parties that people have put forth are for the most part not very conservative in the social sense, but the info in the UIF indicates that there are considerable areas where social conservatism holds sway.

I'll agree that we're not a party that competes everywhere.  We appeal mainly in areas that that are so solidly socially conservative that the only significant difference between voters is their economic views, in which case we pick up those on the economic left and in areas that are so solidly on the left economically that only social views are important and we gain those who are on the social right.

I see only 7 provinces where the RCA/SCA are assured of always having a seat in the local council/parliament, so I'm hardly asserting we're a dominant party.

I largely agree with Al's map as far as Social Credit strength is concerned, except I think he gave us too much strength in Limeria and not enough in Hesperia.  Of course as a rural party, that map makes us look more powerful than we actually are, since it gives us nice large sparsely populated rural areas to call our own.

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As for your dismissive comment about the RCA, I'd like to point out that the historical Social Credit Party of Canada on which I have to some had a similar Anglophone/Francophone wing structure, even splitting for a time which led to their eventual collapse, and that at the Federal level the Quebecers enjoyed more success.

I'm not being dismissive. I just think people are in danger of being carried away when it comes to who can win what. Parties like Social Credit, PRD, Social Liberal etc will really be picking up the scraps (hence the need for blocs - for survival) I don't see PRD under a FPTP system winning outside suburban Arcadia for example. As for Social Credit, yes I don't see such an ideology already in terminal decline worldwide breaking 10% nationwide. If we are playing this in 1991 with increasing social liberalism throughout the 90's, Social Credit support is likely to decline and the average SC voter age. As I said that's not dismissive. It's just being honest.

The big parties will be either PC, ACP and Labour, SDP. So goes the way of most political systems in western Europe. But we will need them as they will need us to reach the magic 50% mark

As for the map, it can be misleading unless it's read the way Al said; these are not equal divisions. I'm creating a map based on that for say 5000 per seat, just because it works as a better visual. For example that large Labour red area rural area in the north west contains only around 10000 people but the small Social Liberal held division would hold twice as much (bear in mind that in the province descriptions, cities often hold over half of the provincial population)

Wait, I thought Antillia used a PR system, either parallel or MMP, rather than FPTP. I might be mistaken but I thought that was what was agreed upon.

Oh it does IIRC. I was pointing out that Als map does not, nor did it attempt to, divide the country into areas of equal population and that should a FPTP map be drawn it would look radically different due to a large rural-urban split.

I'd have to disagree with that on several points.  First off, the economic policies of the Social Credit movement to a large extent were picked up by others as well, so I wouldn't say that it was in terminal decline.  I'm not aware of any mainstream party that doesn't believe that monetary policy should not be used to establish some desired social good.  Whether the desired outcome is full employment, stable prices, or something else entirely is a different matter.

Secondly, Social conservatism is not a core "social credit" plank, although most of the successful Social Credit movements adopted social conservatism, largely because it reflected the views of the rural populists that were historically most attracted to SoCred.

Finally, Antillia is not in Europe, so a vast increase in social liberalism is not a given.  In North America, India, and Africa, I'd argue that the period of the 1990's was by and large a period of increasing social conservatism.

In the USA possibly (that is actually debatable but it's one that's been going on for years) I don't see us emulating India or Africa. We don't have that sort of economic development or society. We have a broadly European culture and history.

All I'm saying is that as we have the benefit of 'foresite' in this game, a party like Social Credit is going to have to adapt. As too are other parties, like Labour and SDP to the advent of the Clinton-Blair Third Way school. My point about an 'aging' SC voter is an example. Is a young 20 something left of centre urbanite going to vote for the SC? No, not if he is increasingly socially liberal. The SDP/Labour will satisfy his left of centre economic viewpoint. In 1991, a party like Social Credit is likely to throw about Huckabee-esque statements about the threat of AIDS etc just as the PRD is going to try and privatise everything that moves.

You can see how both of those messages would eventually grow stale

It's honestly nothing personal, it's just an aside about the future viability of a party like Social Credit within context.

To be quite unspecific, when we do get around to elections, I see the results being messy, can we boil this thing down to 4 parties?

I think it will be alright and realistic for a country with a PR system. Especially since this is the first election after the end of a dictatorship, with a lack of any determinate party structure at the moment, I could easily see the first election being very fragmented. Then, after subsequent elections, I could see parties, such as the Social Liberals, PRD and PC, coming together along with Labour and the SDP.

I suppose, but any move towards consolidation can't be a bad move.

New idea:

Let's have 5 constituencies. That way, we can have each major party run a candidate in each constituency. We can also have 8 list seats as a collorary, elected through a "list" not submitted by the party, but rather consisted of the candidates from each party closest to being elected. The constituencies would use IRV.