Fuzzwork
You’ll have seen (probably) that the elections for CSM 12 are coming up in the near future (Voting starts on the 6th of March). I’m not going to go into details for what the CSM is (There are resources out there.), or who to vote for (Me, obviously 😉 )
What this post is about is the voting system itself. The elections use what’s known as the Wright Voting System. The key part of the system is that you don’t vote for a single candidate; instead you vote for a number of candidates, in the order you’d like to see them elected.
If your first candidate doesn’t get enough votes to get elected (we’ll get to this), then your entire vote gets transferred to the next on the list. If they get more votes than they need, then part of your vote transfers down. So if they get double the votes, then 50% of your vote transfers (and 50% of everyone else’s who voted for them. All going to the next person who voted)
There’s a quota to get elected. This is the total number of voters, divided by the number of seats plus one, plus one. So if you had 20,000 people voting, and 10 seats, that’s (20000/11)+1 or 1819 votes.
This does make things easier for large blocks, such as Goons, as they don’t need to make sure they split up their votes to make sure they get two people. You can just have people vote a set ballot, and let the system take care of it. If you have enough votes, they just transfer over.
It also makes things easier for more marginal candidates. If they arrange between themselves to have people who support them support someone else too, then the votes aren’t going to be totally wasted.
Here’s the key part: If there aren’t enough people hitting quota in the first round, you knock off the person with the fewest votes, transfer all the votes to the next person on the ballot, and start over. If there were people who only voted for the eliminated person, their vote is ignored, and the quota is recalculated, so you have to hit a slightly lower number.
Ideal world: you vote for the people you’d like to see on the CSM, in the order you’d like to see them elected. If lots of people agree with you, then your vote will help multiple people get elected. If a smaller number (but still enough) agree, then your vote gets one person on.
An example would be: There are five wormhole candidates. None of them would attract the votes to get elected. But if they all have everyone voting for them also vote for the others (in whatever their order they like) then whoever gets the fewest gets eliminated, and the votes redistributed. If there are enough votes to elect 2, and they all vote some combination of the list, then there are 2 wormhole CSM. It handles the organisation for you. 😀
This is a total pain in the ass to do manually. Thankfully, there’s no need to do so. There’s software to do it for you. CCP have made it available. This is how the election for CSM 11 would work out, with 10 places available. It’s the full audit log, so you can see how each round works out. (I’ve pre-eliminated Apothne, which makes a few differences.)
The only way to not be represented, with a STV system, is to not vote. (Or to be so marginal that there aren’t enough other people who think like you)
