Novel SL Voting System

Neualtenburg is currently in the process of holding its January 2006 Representative Assembly elections. We are using a novel hybrid in-world/online voting system to give scores to multiple factions using a ranking system. I thought it would be fun to invite those who have interest in alternative voting systems or virtual democracy to try out the voting system. It's smart enough to figure out who's a citizen or not, so it does no harm.

If you're curious and would like to vote, just head over to Neualtenburg. The voting booth is right in the middle of the town square where one teleports in. Simply click it, it will provide you with a PIN, and then open the voting page in a browser. I'm curious what you think about the experience.

Our polls are open until late Wednesday night (PST).

~Ulrika~

Polls are open for another 1.5 days.

~Ulrika~

One and half days? But, but, but, you're not giving us anough time to bribe officals, rig voting stations, stuff ballot boxes. How do you expect to hold real elections?

I am so there!

How far away from the booth do I have to stand while handing out notecards in support of a particular candidate?

Sir, you can stand in the booth, if you'd like.

~Ulrika~

I looked for 'Catcher in the rye' thats like my fave novel.. but it wasn't listed

(for clarification - I read the gay-porn version)

Ooh. We're getting votes from non-citizens. Exciting! Let me know if you have any comments or questions.

~Ulrika~

Who represents the Capitalist party? I want to know so I can cast my vote in that camp. I will never vote for communists.

Why? So you can steal the vote?

Super voting tool!

Firstly, the SDF (Ulrika's party) is not communist, any more than the government of, say, most European countries are. To the back of the class with ye!

Secondly, the MPP (The Moderate People's Party) could be described as more libertarian, whereas the party I currently belong to, the Democratic Pragmaticist Union, could be described as "what the hell ever, let's just try and keep the sim operating smoothly"... loosely speaking.

When I joined Neualt I was going to be in the costume party, but wasn't quite planning on wearing the gestapo outfit because I think it's outlawed...

And Siggy, Slasher in the Rye's movie is much better, doesn't follow the book exactly but it's worth the watch!

I want to applaud Neualtenburg for being brave enough to do two things:

1. Successfully running any SL group via online voting.

and more subtlely:

2. Using alternate voting methods.

Rather than using a simple "vote for favorite" method we all know and are imprisoned to, the voting asks you to rank the three parties. (Though I was disappointed that there was no way to do a write-in.)

A snippet from the voting process:


Why is this method potentially an improvement over other methods? It looks to find the candidate that the most people agree on, not necessarily the singly most favorite.

Imagine if the Gore - Bush - Nader election were done this way. Assume that many Gore people would put Nader as 2 rank, and most Nader people would put Gore as a 1 rank. Whereas most Bush people probably put Nader as choice 2 because of their disdain for Gore. (or another party)

The results of that election may have been totally different - people can stand up and say, "Hey, I think more than one candidate might do a good job." which is much closer to the way micro-politics works. In small groups, people tend to try and come up with decisions that suits everyone in the group, not just a majority.

Again, I applaud N-burg for their efforts in using SL as a social experiment in democratic methods!

Thanks for the kind words Hiro. Your analysis of the alternate voting methods is exactly correct. In the city, the faction with the greatest number of first-place votes did not take the majority. Instead, the faction that was most selected as a second choice took the majority. It's a system that facilitates compromise while allowing multiple parties.

If anyone is interested, the results of our very close election can be found here along with an analysis of the results. The polls are closed until next election.

~Ulrika~

Thanks to everyone that voted who wasn't a resident. I was actually quite surprised by the turnout. Next time I'll create a non-citizen faction that allows access to all the voting features citizens have to really let folks get a feel for the system.

~Ulrika~