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Politics, Elections and Voting.


HaveADream

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Disclaimer: So I'm going to deviate a little here from the usual structure of suggestions, and I'll just describe everything in a subsection.

 

Elections

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Higher Res. Available On Request

 

Let me summarise everything for you.

 

How It Works

                                  For City Council

- There will be eight successful candidates elected to the city council. Elections will take place in the wider Los Santos Metropolitan Area.

- Constituencies pictured above are, From top left down; Chilliad West, Chilliad East, Grand Senora, Richman And Chumash, Vinewood, Beachfront, Downtown & Park, South And East Los Santos.

- Constituencies are based on; population density; property prices; location; and average income.

- Elections will use the AV System for electing candidates to constituencies. Upon proposals to expand the voting system, elections will switch to the STV system. Constituencies will stay the same, although members per constituency will increase.

- By-elections will be called if a Member of City Council is inactive for more than two weeks without notice. This also occurs in the event of a Character Kill, a ban, or by request from Faction Management.

- Elections will be handled by the Electoral Commission.

- The Electoral Commission will add small modifiers to the vote in line with a variety of factors, including membership, polling, and establishment. the list of active modifiers will not be released in any capacity to preserve the vote and to prevent 'gaming' of the system.

- The Electoral Commission will likely be made up of a multitude of FM and trusted members of the community. 

 

                                  For Mayor

- Elections will use the AV system indefinitely. 

- All constituencies will receive the same ballot paper for mayor.

- By-elections will be called if a Mayor is inactive for more than two weeks without notice. Same restrictions apply as they do on City Council Membership.

- Elections will be handled by the Electoral Commission.

 

                                  For Candidates

- All candidates must be United States citizens. (IC)

- All candidates must be over the age of 18. (IC)

- All candidates will have their campaign funds limited by the Electoral Commission. Overspending will be considered an offence. (IC)

- Candidates may stand with a party, or as an independent. 

- All candidates must have over a hundred hours spent within the server on any character. (OOC)

- All candidates must be free from admin punishments in the last 28 days. (OOC)

 

                                  For Voters

- Registering to vote will be possible through an online portal for your character. (IC)

- All voters must be over the age of 18. (IC)

- All Voters must be United States citizens.  (IC)

- No registration, no vote. (IC)

- Registration will take place until three days before voting day. (IC)

- Voting day will be in character, through an online system. (IC)

- Proxy and postal votes will be possible. (IC)

- Players require 10 hours on the server on any character in order to vote. (OOC)

- Players with multiple characters in one account can only vote once in the same area. Separate characters will be able to vote in different areas if they live in different areas. Abuse of this will be referred to administation. (OOC)

 

 

Benefits

- Active, dynamic, political roleplay with a real effect on San Andreas law and the Penal Code.

- Use of a Civil Service, allowing further legal roleplay opportunities. 

- Little work required done script-wise, other than a potential UCP link.

- Political Representation for all characters within the server.

- Leadership Debates, Election Debates, enhanced roleplay for news factions. (Makes good use of the new /news system.)

- Formation of political parties and establishing the establishment. Rise of right-wing populism or the revival of social liberalism - you decide.

- Countless possible interactions - divisions between friends over candidates, petitions, protests, and so on.

- Political leaflets, slogans and advertising. 

 

Questions

Q: Why AV?

A: Smaller voting pool than real life, meaning it will be easy for elections to be won by one or two votes, this system will hopefully prevent that by using a more proportional system to distribute votes.

 

Q: Is the player base big enough?

A: I'd argue so - servers smaller than us have done this successfully, and the opportunities this provides is definitely exciting and new and can lead to a more immersive experience.

 

Q: What about vote rigging/joke candidates/obviously unrealistic candidates?

A: This can be controlled by both PLM and the Electoral Commission.

 

Q: Does this mean more work for admins?

A: Electoral Commission can take all of the responsibility and be a completely IC thing, all that is absolutely required is the appointment of the electoral commission, which can include admins or not, the verification of hours for candidates, and the verification of votes in counting.

 

Q: Will enough people vote/stand?

A: Many are interested in political roleplay, this will enhance their ability to get more involved. As for people voting, I believe that's an IC issue, it's up to the candidates to rally their player base.

 

Any more questions, feel free to ask.

 

 

 

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Very good post with a lot of information in a concise format. But I’m about to say something that people who knew me four years ago would never believe I’d say: I don’t think we should be electing any of these positions.

 

I’ve spent 7 years doing political RP primarily, and on a community that allowed far more reach for the IC government. I both hosted and ran in many elections. Even though it was an interesting sandbox, and the campaign RP was colorful, more often than not it was a popularity contest that relied mostly on someone’s likability and capacity for graphic design/marketing/branding. Beyond that, it was often a shitshow that preserved absolutely no continuity of government from one “administration” or “congress” to the next.

 

The criteria that admins consider when appointing these people is different from criteria that energize players in an election, and I think more fit for the environment of this server. Now, admins aren’t always perfect when appointing either. I considered Olivia Morales an unyielding doofus as the mayor and made that known at the time. But in retrospect, that was remedied pretty quickly. 

 

The current government administration run by Rockford has created a full, comprehensive website that integrates with the game experience and they are ACTIVE—but intentionally remain behind the scenes because that is how they prefer the government to operate. That is also how I prefer the government to operate, frankly, rather than a recycling of political campaign RP for whoever has an ambitious character arc every four months. Starting from nothing, they created a City Charter, an extremely comprehensive grant and loan program that has already disbursed millions of dollars, and other initiatives like housing. All of those things are good, noticeable and relevant, even if you don’t know the names of the people who wrote them.

 

And they would not have been elected. They would likely be passed over for someone with a more interconnected friend group or great branding, but perhaps lacking an appreciation for the nuance of making a system that can stand the test of time. 

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5 minutes ago, Spenser said:

Very good post with a lot of information in a concise format. But I’m about to say something that people who knew me four years ago would never believe I’d say: I don’t think we should be electing any of these positions.

 

I’ve spent 7 years doing political RP primarily, and on a community that allowed far more reach for the IC government. I both hosted and ran in many elections. Even though it was an interesting sandbox, and the campaign RP was colorful, more often than not it was a popularity contest that relied mostly on someone’s likability and capacity for graphic design/marketing/branding. Beyond that, it was often a shitshow that preserved absolutely no continuity of government from one “administration” or “congress” to the next.

 

The criteria that admins consider when appointing these people is different from criteria that energize players in an election, and I think more fit for the environment of this server. Now, admins aren’t always perfect when appointing either. I considered Olivia Morales an unyielding doofus as the mayor and made that known at the time. But in retrospect, that was remedied pretty quickly. 

 

The current government administration run by Rockford has created a full, comprehensive website that integrates with the game experience and they are ACTIVE—but intentionally remain behind the scenes because that is how they prefer the government to operate. That is also how I prefer the government to operate, frankly, rather than a recycling of political campaign RP for whoever has an ambitious character arc every four months. Starting from nothing, they created a City Charter, an extremely comprehensive grant and loan program that has already disbursed millions of dollars, and other initiatives like housing. All of those things are good, noticeable and relevant, even if you don’t know the names of the people who wrote them.

 

And they would not have been elected. They would likely be passed over for someone with a more interconnected friend group or great branding, but perhaps lacking an appreciation for the nuance of making a system that can stand the test of time. 

Hence the use of a civil service, a government is built upon its unelected civil service, pandering to the wishes of the current administration.

 

There's a lot of issues with the current administration, despite the work they do. From an old, no longer practical penal code to lack of credible government policy and so on.

 

The current government already asks as a Civil Service and nobody can argue the work they do, but it's not always political work, I feel it's time to bring the political time in.

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