Idea for running elections

[Filuwaúrdjan]

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.

[Filuwaúrdjan]

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

[Filuwaúrdjan]

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

[Filuwaúrdjan]

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

[Filuwaúrdjan]

Leading party by district, canton, ward, cantref or whatever:


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.

[Filuwaúrdjan]

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.

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

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I didn't forget them actually.

[Filuwaúrdjan]

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.

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

[Filuwaúrdjan]

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.

[Filuwaúrdjan]

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."

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.

[Filuwaúrdjan]

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.