o hai

[ZuWo]

I am not surprised but it's good to have clarity. Efforts by the left to make people strategically register in the Mideast have been going on for a very long time. I certainly have a lower opinion of some people in the Progressive Union now, though.

[ZuWo]

For a long time there has been a more or less silent agreement in Atlasia that people should register in their real-life homestates. This makes sense because strategic registration severely hurts the game as evidenced by this very thread.

Firstly, the atmosphere in the game becomes worse because of strategic registration efforts. Nobody likes it if the region they have been part of for months or years is suddenly overrun by strategic registrants who have no affiliation to that region and whose sole job is to vote for or against a certain party. If the Federalist Party decided to make, say, three Northeastern and two Midwestern Federalists register in the Mideast a couple of days before an important election, I think the Mideast PU and Labor Party members wouldn't welcome them with open arms.

Secondly, as this case shows strategic registration leads to a drain of citizens in regions where new players are needed the most. The Pacific is the one Atlasian region which struggles most with activity, yet some people think it's smart to target real-life Pacificans as new recruits for the Mideast, the biggest and most active Atlasian region by far. The worst and most counterproductive thing to do at the moment is to weaken the Pacific even more for purely partisan reasons.

Finally, if one side starts serious efforts at strategic registration, the other side may feel compelled to react, which makes the situation all the more serious. In short, strategic registrations may benefit a particular political group in the short term but it's absolutely devastating for the game in the long run.

[ZuWo]

I will reply to your post bit by bit.

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The last point is certainly true for the Federalist Party, but when I read how President Nix refers to other Labor Party members as "soldiers" that are needed in other regions and when I see that the Labor Party has been pretty vocal about their past strategic registration attempts in the IDS, I must question that every player is as independent as we would like to think. There have been concerted efforts to make members of a particular party register in a particular region for short-term political gain, that's a fact.

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This doesn't affect the effectiveness of strategic registration in any negative way. Parties can send some of their loyal "soldiers" from region A to region B and fill the void that has been created in region A with people from regions C and D. As for the invalidation of votes, only those votes cast by people who have moved to a particular region less than seven days before an election are invalidated. People who strategically register 8 or more days before the election are not affected by this rule. 

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What should people who aren't from the US do, in your opinion? They have no other choice than to select a random region and, preferably, stay there for some time. For Americans, the easiest and the most logical decision is indeed to pick their home state. Of course, if a few Americans decide to register in an entirely different state that's fine but it gets problematic when new players are systematically encouraged by a certain party to register in a particular region.

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That's indeed one of the key points: fun. But systematic attempts at strategic registration kill the fun for many. Again, it's not a problem if a few people decide on their own that they would like to register in a different region, but it's getting troubling for the game if it's done systematically by a particular party.