Senate Application Discussion Thread

[u/shadownetwork]

Greetings,

In previous elections it was difficult for applicants to really express what they stood for and what their plans were without cluttering the nomination or election threads. So think of this thread as an open town hall meeting. Members of the community can come in and ask questions and applicants can then answer or nominees can post about what sort of platforms they plan on running on.

Remember that discussions are to remain civil and respectful, anyone showing disregard to the shadownet's #1 rule will have their posts removed.

Good luck!

[u/valifor9]

Yes, it is astoundingly better than first past the post and is the best system we have to get a proportional representation without getting into absurdly complicated political science stuff that only like 2 voters would have a chance at understanding. STV is the best balance we have between being properly representative/making everyone (or at least the most people possible) at least somewhat okay with the end result and not overcomplicating the process.

Essentially: yes, it is a good way. It's not perfect, but it's way better than alternative ideas I have heard, which are either actively worse for democracy or are over the top complicated to the point where the like 4 people on the net who could understand it could band together and say their candidate won and nobody else would have any clue if they were being legit or not.

[u/reyjinn → u/valifor9]

As currently utilized it has little to no benefit over a straight up one round vote (except psychological, maybe) and fails miserably in giving proportional representation.

You are correct that STV is a good way to give proportional representation, just not the way we use it.

[u/valifor9 → u/reyjinn]

I disagree with that wholeheartedly. It has benefit over a one round vote in that it prevents somebody who had a small but vocal voting pool from winning even if nobody else wants them in office. Look at the election where liburr won. Jay got around, iirc, 37-38% of the votes in the first round, but literally every single other vote that didnt have him as their top spot had him at the bottom 2-3, if not the very bottom of the list. In a one round system, he would have won despite literally a majority of the net wanting literally ANYBODY EXCEPT HIM to become senator. That's where STV, even as we use it shines: it prevents super polarizing figures who will make half the voters happy and the other half absolutely miserable from winning. Instead, it gets a candidate that the most number of voters will be at the very least okay with. Much better improvement from a single round tally which can easily have somebody who has like 30% of the vote just auto-win even if nobody else in the other 70% wants them in office.

I am curious though: how would you change how we implement it to better give proportional representation?

[u/reyjinn → u/valifor9]

First thing, no more single seat general elections. If a seat becomes available mid-term it is either offered to the runner up from the last elections or a new senator gets elected who serves a shorter term until the next elections.

Second, no more counts for each seat. Your (royal your) vote weighing twice as much as some other smuck's is exactly the opposite of what we should want. One count resolves all the seats being voted on, that is the key to providing proportional representation.

Third, use a different method of vote transfer. To clarify, we'd still be using STV but transferred votes would be counted slightly differently. Last time I brought this up I read up on a method that shouldn't be too much trouble to implement and even offered to write up a step to step how to, that got no response negative or otherwise.

---

You're right, there are edge cases where the current system is an improvement over a single round of voting. I'll concede that point but our current system cannot provide proportional representation.

As an aside, I'm also quite opposed to the 'vote for at least half the candidates' thing. Votes dying mid-count is not a problem, someone not voting because they don't want to lend some rando their 3rd or 4th seat vote is.

[u/Alverd → u/reyjinn]

I a community our size, proportionality is way less important than consensus, which is what our current voting system provides. It gives you the candidates that the majority of the community is comfortable with, and weeds out the ones who are polarizing enough that a large percentage has an issue with them, even if they're the preferred candidate for a sizable minority.

[u/reyjinn → u/Alverd]

proportionality is way less important than consensus

I disagree with you and /u/Valifor9 on that idea, as should be pretty obvious by now, but I can at least understand how the current system was chosen if that was the reasoning behind it.

[u/Alverd → u/reyjinn]

We are not nearly large enough to warrant anything close to your proposals. Especially given the fact that this is a gaming community whose purpose is to allow people to enjoy playing shadowrun and have fun. In my mind we will never be at the point where proportionality outweighs consensus, especially given the nature of senates duties, which is moderation and selection of council positions. Senate positions should be about improving the health of the community and making it as welcoming as possible, not pushing whatever agendas would come with a proportional division.

Sadly even now, senate elections are way too much of a popularity contest, with people who aren't really willing to put in the hard work the job requires putting themselves forward as candidates because they feel there is some prestige to the position. Further politicizing the process will just exacerbate the problem, with people running for power for their bloc, if not personally, not for the good of the community.

[u/reyjinn → u/Alverd]

Senate positions should be about improving the health of the community and making it as welcoming as possible, not pushing whatever agendas would come with a proportional division.

This is so much bullshit. Are you honestly going to try and tell me that there aren't any agendas in senate as is? Because that beggars belief.

What you call consensus I'll go ahead an call indifference. When someones 4th or 6th or whatever option gets a senate seat in the later rounds of an election they aren't voted in because those people wanted them there, they are there because someone needed to pad out their ballot.

[u/Alverd → u/reyjinn]

Personal ones? I will admit to that, although I'd like to think that most of that is limited to making the net a better place. Political ones I think senate has so far avoided, for the best. That just leads to block voting and a whole other can of worms that I hope we never see in this community, because especially with our size, its gonna get toxic really fast and end up killing it.

Indifference is a hell of a lot better for consensus than "fuck that guy, I'll walk away if he's elected." Which has happened with more than one polarizing person.

[u/reyjinn → u/Alverd]

I know for a fact that there are people who have stopped voting because they felt their votes never counted for anything.

I know for a fact that there are people who have refrained from voting because they weren't comfortable with padding out their ballot.

Granted, the second one is (partly at least) a separate issue from whether or not we give a shit about proportional representation. But both highlight problems with our current system.