Simulated NPC Elections (Update: legislation passed, rules upcoming, elections on the 25th)

[Lumine]

The concept of NPC elections ran by the Game Engine has seemingly attracted a lot of public interest and support, and after running the latest poll I've concluded that it is something I very much want to go forward with. Since the Constitution does empower the GM with simulating "the actions of non-playable entities" and additional legislation builds on that, I certainly would have - if confirmed* - the powers to do, and after some reflection I've come up with a tentative mechanism that I'll be detailing in a small "paper" here for comments, suggestions or feedback.

NPC Elections
Simulating local and state government in Atlasia

PREAMBLE:
The Game Engine has faced a struggle in terms of being a relevant part of the game, one which provides both feedback and consequences - meaningful ones - for player action and interaction. A proposed partial solution to this is to engage in a dynamic experiment, one in which both GM and players work within a determined set of basic rules to deliver monthly results that breathe new life into State and Local Governments, both areas often neglected and/or subject to a lack of context that makes their simulation more difficult for the Game Engine as well. By providing these simulated but ultimately "playable" elections, the Game Engine can both offer detailed info on the state of these local governments and explore this area of the government.

MAIN MECHANISM:
Polling suggests players prefer a system in which they have more input in what the results are, as opposed to one in which the GM does most of the work. Essentially, a more "direct" system in which what you do as a player affects the results we end up with. Thus, I've come up with this:

What elections will be simulated?
-Two types. The main one is the State Governments, simulated via the Governor, State House and State Senate. The second one is the Local Governments, which given their extension will be limited to a few key cities in terms of their Mayor (key ones like Nyman, New York City, Chicago, Los Angeles, and probably no more than 10 in total so as to remain manageable).

What influence will general factors have?
-A secondary one. I will account for how the economy is doing (ideally as outlined by the Comptroller General), party registration numbers in the region, legislation and such other things, and this will have some limited impact on the results.

What influence will players have?
-The key one. Players will be allowed to participate in these elections in two different ways.

CAMPAIGNS: Since there may be a special thread for these elections, players will be able to campaign there for their parties and candidates when they wish to do so, or alternatively they can do so from their own threads and merely quote those posts in the main one. So if you want to help elect a Federalist or a Laborite as, say, Governor of Illinois, you will be able to do so, and I will grade your efforts to account how much of an impact you have on the race.

PARTIES: There will also be a role for parties (less important than players though). Each party will be given a total of Campaign Points at the start of each turn, and if they wish to do so they can allocate those points to the races they want to prioritize - to account for how in RL states are "targeted" -. Those points - a system already used often in Mock Parliament - will account for how large the party is and how well is doing. This is one is more of an experimental feature and if it doesn't work I may just ditch it, but I'd like to give it a try at least for Phase One.

How to handle parties and candidates?
-That's a tricky part. I can't afford to create a system which is unwieldy and too difficult to simulate, so I must start in a more simple manner. Since these are NPC's they'll have to remain nameless (we'd have to either create NPC characters, which takes up a lot of work, or use RL people, which will lead to inevitable problems when people insist a RL person is Fed or a Laborite). I'll be using the national parties first, may use the regional ones if the system end ups taking off.

ELECTORAL CALENDAR:

Since it would be problematic to have the GM spending most of its time on this, I've designed the system to require activity from the GM at two key points during the month, so as to not be forced to run this thing every day. I've come up with three month terms for these positions, so every three months any given state or city - that we simulate -will have an election. The key is that we will spread these states and cites so that we have elections at the end of each month focused on a given group of states.

Therefore, at the start of each month the GM will give parties their Campaign Points to use, and at the end of each month he will grade player activity, account for factors, and give you the results for that month's group of states. I put the names of the current states (which includes the District of Columbia) on an online list randomizer after separating them by region, and came up with this:

Phase One: First Month

Phase Two: Second Month

Phase Three: Third Month

And so on and so on. If this works, that means that at the end of every month you will see a number of states and cites elect members of the various Atlasian parties, which will impact how the Regional Governments work, influence stories by accounting how these partisan governments react to what players do, and hopefully give players and parties something extra to do that results in meaningful outcomes.

FINAL THOUGHTS:

This is all very experimental, I've tried to implement lessons learned from games at the History and Election Games Board and Mock Parliament, and I think this could work. Although one could make this a lot more complex, I don't think it's wise to be so overtly ambitious or detailed, and I want to see if this version works out (both for players and for me).If we're lucky and it does work, the system can be refined so that every future GM can keep these elections running without requiring too much work. Chances are we'll see significant changes before this is implemented, but those are my thoughts on mechanics thus far.

A Note on the Regions: Funnily enough, this could spur the Regional Governments to take states into account for their decisions. They could even determine the electoral systems for the Mayors or the States, which I'd then have to implement (I would assume FPTP is the system in place in these governments).

_______________________________________________________________________________

* I realize stuff like this, the polls and other comments may not be exactly in good taste since I'm not confirmed yet, but the nomination alone has drawn up an increasing amount of personal interest on how to do the job.

[PSOL]

I’m so excited!

[Unconditional Surrender Truman]

For the record, Frémont reorganized its constituent state and local governments (including election calendars) some months ago:

Constituency Democratization Act
Universal Suffrage Act
Local Reorganization Act

[OBD]

HYPE!!! Excited to see this get off the ground!

[Lumine]

For the record, Frémont reorganized its constituent state and local governments (including election calendars) some months ago:

Constituency Democratization Act
Universal Suffrage Act
Local Reorganization Act

Oh! Thank you for pointing this out, that does create a major issue here (it's embarrassing I wasn't aware of those bills, actually).

i. Effective 1 January 2020, all regular state (or territorial) and municipal elections in Frémont shall be on the first day of November, in the year in which those elections would have proceeded had this Act never been made.

That alone contradicts what I had envisioned as a calendar - and establishes terms far closer to RL -, so it makes the planned mechanism not particularly viable (if not impossible). I'll have to rethink the approach then.

[Esteemed Jimmy]

Interesting.

[AustralianSwingVoter]

For the record, Frémont reorganized its constituent state and local governments (including election calendars) some months ago:

Constituency Democratization Act
Universal Suffrage Act
Local Reorganization Act

Oh! Thank you for pointing this out, that does create a major issue here (it's embarrassing I wasn't aware of those bills, actually).

i. Effective 1 January 2020, all regular state (or territorial) and municipal elections in Frémont shall be on the first day of November, in the year in which those elections would have proceeded had this Act never been made.

That alone contradicts what I had envisioned as a calendar - and establishes terms far closer to RL -, so it makes the planned mechanism not particularly viable (if not impossible). I'll have to rethink the approach then.

I imagine either Parliament amends the legislation to fit GM-simulated elections or Fremont is totally excluded from the excitement.

[At-Large Senator LouisvilleThunder]

Wow, this is an impressive plan. I hope we can make this happen somehow.

[The world will shine with light in our nightmare]

As I said before, I'm really excited about trying this proposal.  I would recommend Frémont change its laws to allow for GM regulation of local elections, and if Lincoln or the South have similar laws then those should be changed too.

[Lumine]

I'll be releasing a second version of this, currently recieving a lot of helpful feedback and good ideas. The biggest issue is that I need further feedback from the South and Lincoln regarding this plan, because they don't have laws concerning their own state/local governments. On the bright side this gives me a lot of space, but it would also mean having to decide what electoral system they're using (FPTP?).

Would be good to hear ideas on what's best to do regarding those regions, or whether there is an interest from regional officeholders in addressing this issue so I can adapt to it depending on what they decide (as opposed to me dictating stuff, which is not the point).

[The world will shine with light in our nightmare]

I mentioned this in FrémontCord, but preferably we don't use FPTP systems because the Feds would be at an unfair advantage due to a split between Peace and Labor, especially now that the ACP is all but dead.  We also don't use FPTP for most other things in Atlasia.

But as it stands now (I think), only Frémont has its own code pertaining to local elections, although that is going to be reformed.  Lincoln and the South should write their own, in conjunction with Lumine of course.

[Unconditional Surrender Truman]

I mentioned this in FrémontCord, but preferably we don't use FPTP systems because the Feds would be at an unfair advantage due to a split between Peace and Labor, especially now that the ACP is all but dead.  We also don't use FPTP for most other things in Atlasia.

Already introduced a bill to do exactly this.

[Continential]

What about for areas like Kansas where there will be a lot of Pro-Fremonters and a lot of Pro-Southerners?

[OBD]

I mentioned this in FrémontCord, but preferably we don't use FPTP systems because the Feds would be at an unfair advantage due to a split between Peace and Labor, especially now that the ACP is all but dead.  We also don't use FPTP for most other things in Atlasia.

Well, it's also possible that there still are just two major candidates, but each party chooses which candidates to endorse - kind of like in IRL Oregon, where politicians can rack up endorsements from the Working Families and Independent Party in addition to the Democrats/Republicans.

Also, I might be alone in this, but I'd rather see IRL politicians in these positions. Using random characters would not be fun to remember, and I trust Lumine can assign IRL people to Atlasia parties fairly.

[Boobs]

this looks great Lumine, excellent work so far. Can't wait to see it in action

[Elcaspar]

Looks good! Can't wait to see it get into action!

[Lumine]

Right, upon recieving feedback I'm introducing a second version with some changes (we will probably have to do this a few more times until we get a solid system). Still, I really need to know whether Lincoln and the South are interested in adopting clear rules in terms of their state/local elections.

Two main things to note:

MECHANICS:

Upon some feedback, we'll be putting extra emphasis on the states having their own political behavior within Atlasia as opposed to their RL politics. That means that among the non-playable factors I simulate I will account both for previous electoral results (Presidential and House Elections, for example) as well as party registration. I will also make campaign rules clearer when the time comes, including a major penalty for spamming (people won't win elections by posting the same speech in every single state and spamming stuff, which also against the Terms of Service).

ELECTORAL CALENDAR:

It was felt by many that having about 17-18 different contests per month was too much, and I agree. As a result, I'd like to spread out the elections over a six month period rather than a three-month term, so as to concentrate in 8-10 ten states every single month. This will also include six mayoral elections regarding six cities which I feel are both prominent and have a strong mayor as opposed to a council manager system: Los Angeles / San Francisco / New York City / Chicago / Houston / Miami, which also comes with the Mayor of Nyman (which represents the government of the District of Columbia). I put the cities through a randomizer and we got this order: New York City (1) / Miami (2) / Los Angeles (3) / San Francisco (4) / Chicago (5) / Houston (6).

Having put the states into a randomizer, this is what we got:

Phase One: First Month

Phase Two: Second Month

Phase Three: Third Month

Phase Four: Fourth Month

Phase Five: Fifth Month

Phase Six: Sixth Month

[Pericles]

It would have been cool to include AR in the original phase one, so it could be the MN-IA-MO-AR-LA stack (nobody say they prefer the sunbelt stack lol).

[Sestak]

It would have been cool to include AR in the original phase one, so it could be the MN-IA-MO-AR-LA stack (nobody say they prefer the sunbelt stack lol).

Prefer the SUNBELT STACK

[Boobs]

Could we know who are the incumbent governors and Mayors right now? 

[Lumine]

Could we know who are the incumbent governors and Mayors right now? 

I'll give it some thought, though I'd be a bit wary of simply picking which state is represented by which party.

Also, my sincere thanks for Fremont and Lincoln to introduce legislation to allow for this mechanism to be implemented, look forward to that debate (and of eventually moving forward with this, would love to hold the first set at the end of May).

[Deep Dixieland Senator, Muad'dib (OSR MSR)]

Could we know who are the incumbent governors and Mayors right now? 

I'll give it some thought, though I'd be a bit wary of simply picking which state is represented by which party.

Also, my sincere thanks for Fremont and Lincoln to introduce legislation to allow for this mechanism to be implemented, look forward to that debate (and of eventually moving forward with this, would love to hold the first set at the end of May).

Regional parties will be represented in these elections? For instance:

Dixieland Patriots Party
Fianna Fremont
Fremont Atlasian Inquisition Chapter
Liberal Party
Lincoln Atlasian Inquisition Chapter
Meadowlark
Southern Atlasian Inquisition Chapter
Southern Liberty Coalition
Southern Trans Rights Party
Random and Miscellaneous state & local parties

[Deep Dixieland Senator, Muad'dib (OSR MSR)]

...would love to hold the first set at the end of May).

If the plan is for May, may I suggest, my Lord Inquisitor that you use the "fifth month" as the initial election set so that your maps sync up in 6 month cycle.

Phase Five: Fifth Month

[S019]

Could we know who are the incumbent governors and Mayors right now? 

I'll give it some thought, though I'd be a bit wary of simply picking which state is represented by which party.

Also, my sincere thanks for Fremont and Lincoln to introduce legislation to allow for this mechanism to be implemented, look forward to that debate (and of eventually moving forward with this, would love to hold the first set at the end of May).

Regional parties will be represented in these elections? For instance:

Dixieland Patriots Party
Fianna Fremont
Fremont Atlasian Inquisition Chapter
Liberal Party
Lincoln Atlasian Inquisition Chapter
Meadowlark
Southern Atlasian Inquisition Chapter
Southern Liberty Coalition
Southern Trans Rights Party
Random and Miscellaneous state & local parties

For regional parties my best guess is this

South: Southern Liberty Coalition/Dixieland Patriots Party v Southern Trans Rights
Fremont: Meadowlark v Fianna Fremont
Lincoln: Liberal/Labor Left v Lincoln Conservative Union?

[Lumine]

Regional parties will be represented in these elections? For instance:

Dixieland Patriots Party
Fianna Fremont
Fremont Atlasian Inquisition Chapter
Liberal Party
Lincoln Atlasian Inquisition Chapter
Meadowlark
Southern Atlasian Inquisition Chapter
Southern Liberty Coalition
Southern Trans Rights Party
Random and Miscellaneous state & local parties

Would have loved to, actually. The problem is that too few Atlasians are registered in regional parties, so it would turn the mechanism into something more exclusive towards the minority that play actively in such parties. Mind you, I'd like to come up with a way to include regional parties or allow people to play as those too (without going overboard with troll parties), but given this is an experimental phase I think federal parties will have to do unless I make it explicit that for regional parties to stand, players have to play as them and compete against the big parties (unless those stand aside).

That might work, but as I've said, regional parties are disadvantaged in that they have only a fraction of the player base.

...would love to hold the first set at the end of May).

If the plan is for May, may I suggest, my Lord Inquisitor that you use the "fifth month" as the initial election set so that your maps sync up in 6 month cycle.

Not a bad idea at all - really hadn't though of that -, if we can get this started for May then it's worth serious consideration (I do need the South to ideally also debate this issue on the legislature so they're not left outside)