June Citizens' Assembly Poll Analysis

Calvin Coolidge

Spellcaster
Forum Administrator
Honoured Citizen
Citizen
From June 2-4, this newspaper ran a poll asking citizens their thoughts on the ongoing Citizens' Assembly Chair election, and related matters. That poll garnered twenty-four responses, and we will now go into the results.

The first two questions are just basic demographics finding questions, so we can see that we had a good spread of user "ages" taking the poll, but the vast majority has been here for over a year. Also, two-thirds of the respondents were members of the CA, and thus eligible to vote in the Chair election, while one-third was not. This is important, because only CA members were allowed to answer the next couple questions about the race. The non-CA members just progressed to the final question about universal CA membership, so the numbers will get smaller for the next few questions.

What we see here is that out of our sixteen eligible CA member voters, GraVandius captures a plurality of voters in the vital question of fixing the Elections Ordinance, a thorn in the side of the CA for about a year, or longer. To win, voters need to feel a Chair candidate is capable of working on legislation. What's really notable, though, is the strong presence of "None", which earns second place, and one quarter of the vote. That's a pretty high number when there are so many candidates to choose from, and might represent either the growing feeling that the CA is not fixable, or might simply indicate that these candidates are not capable of fixing it. However, since 75% of CA voters believe somebody has a good plan, all hope is not lost.

Next, we see that voters have somebody else favored for non-legislative projects, with United Vietussa picking up four votes (he had none support his legislative plan), putting him in a tie with "None", which again picks up four votes, or one quarter. Here, the field is more evenly dispersed, so it seems no plan has really separated themselves from the pack.

For our big question, we have a clear winner: GraVandius. Although he still has not broken fifty percent, he has more than triple the support of his closest competitors, and is the clear favorite to win the race, as we see playing out now in the public vote. Whether this is due to the voters supporting his legislative plan more, and we can use this to show the importance of legislative issues over non-legislative seems like a fair assumption, given that the CA is a legislative body. If he is elected, we will watch with interest to see if his legislative plan, which was the most popular, though not by much, will be the plan that actually gets adopted.


For our final question, we gather the entirety of the respondents to ask about an issue beyond the election, to see where the larger public stands on what has become a hot-button topic: universal CA membership. While there is sizable resistance against the adoption of the idea, the vast majority of those polled feel this is something that should be done. We've seen this play out in the campaign thread of United Vietussia, the lone candidate in the race against the idea, and this very well could have cost him the race, despite the poll showing support for his other, non-legislative plans. Moving forward, it seems that the next Chair would be wise to take action on this.

We'll end this article with the comments that we received, for your consideration.
  • Seeing a couple familiar faces running, and some new ones too! Interested to see how Kark and UV do!
  • A shame that Trinn had to go so soon, I was looking forward to a great CA reform period. Maybe one of these guys can pull it off...
  • Half of the candidates do not understand legislation and would be poor Chair's in general.
  • Right now, what the CA needs is an experienced hand that know's what it is doing, or else we are going to end up with another term down the drain with nothing accomplished. No candidates have looked at the recent AO and said, "Oh, maybe we should be changing some of our Ordinances and the usages of 'shall' but focus on what should be the most consensual topic: automatic membership.
  • Every candidate is really really bad. The CA lost a ton when Trinn resigned. None of these candidates could hold his jock.
  • Seriously, automatic membership doesn't force people to participate. All it does is eliminate a bureaucratic roadblock and make it easier for people to jump in. Those who are against automatic membership need to realize this.
  • I'm disheartened that Trinn had to leave. The reforms that the CA needed to carry out were/are really only possible with him at the helm.
  • ~!!THE CITIZENZ ASSEMBLY IS DANK!!~
  • Half the candidates can't even understand the difference between granting automatic voting rights in the CA and forcing them to be involved with the CA.
  • Needs stability
  • Still a proponent of the EAA or a similar measure, hope the next Chair will address this issue.
  • Some of the candidates still don't understand that "automatic" membership does not mean "compulsory." No one will be obligated to do anything. They don't have to discuss, vote, or whatever... but anyone will be -able- to do those things. Making membership automatic removes the administrative burden of activity checks and membership applications with the added benefit of making the CA equivalent to "the People." Its a no-brainer.
  • The CA continues to have issues with candidates either not fully understanding the issues at hand, or generally saying, "I will work with the Senate to fix this!" Working with the Senate is great, but I wish there were more detailed plans about a fix (for the Elections Ordinance, for example) than general, "I will fix this, I promise!"
  • Honestly, none of these candidates seems to understand legislation in any fashion that I would be comfortable letting them run the "legislative training ground" that is the CA. The closest is GraVandius, but I'd describe his knowledge of legislation as knowing just enough to be dangerous, and not willing to work with others if they conflict with his vision. I think UV has a good plan for the non-legislative part of the CA, but it's still pretty lacking, and devoid of specifics. What the CA needs is somebody who is willing to put their ego aside and just honestly work on the CA for its own benefit, not as a means to score political points, which is what I think all of these candidates are guilty of.
  • One think that has become too heavily focused on during the races, one that I feel has harmed the chair, is a focus away from how the chair will be a mentor and administrator in the CA, and towards the chair being a legislator. I feel this is a problem as any member in the CA is a legislator, that trivializes the chair and makes him nothing more than a slightly "fancier" title than chairperson.
  • Sucks that Trinn had to resign... and that he didn't bother to familiarize himself with the CA Act before he did.
While several respondents used this opportunity to restate their views on universal membership, there was also a sizable amount that stated their lack of trust in the crop of Chair candidates, particularly their understanding of legislation, and were worried about Trinnien's (the Chair who's resignation triggered this election) exit, and their hopes for the legislative body's future under new, less experienced leadership.

Overall, this election seems to have been met with a large "meh", with very few people being truly excited about any of the candidates, but mostly settling around GraVandius, who is viewed as the most experienced. Universal membership is pretty much a done deal after the election, but the debate will likely continue, due to the lack of complete acceptance. Until next time, this is Calvin Coolidge, sitting on the sidelines.

Raw data
 
Next, we see that voters have somebody else favored for non-legislative projects, with United Vietussa picking up four votes (he had none support his legislative plan), putting him in a tie with "None", which again picks up four votes, or one quarter. Here, the field is more evenly dispersed, so it seems no plan has really separated themselves from the pack.
I'd just like to point out that Me, UV and Kark all essentially have the same administrative plans. It's mostly based off of what Trinn said he wanted to accomplish this term (most of which were long standing goals of reformers).
 
Since it has come up a lot can we get the stats on how the 8 non CA members voted on automatic membership. At least two voted for and I'm willing to assume that the two people who said they would vote for UV are against, which would seem to suggest that non-member support is at least 50%.
 
Notolecta said:
Since it has come up a lot can we get the stats on how the 8 non CA members voted on automatic membership. At least two voted for and I'm willing to assume that the two people who said they would vote for UV are against, which would seem to suggest that non-member support is at least 50%.
Of the eight non-CA members: six were in favor (75% of non-members), and two are opposed (25%). That means that twelve of the sixteen members were in favor (75% of members), and four out of the sixteen members were opposed (25%). Since the percentages are the same, we can say that being a member of the CA does not sway your opinion on this matter one way or the other. And yes, Noto, both of UV's supporters (in the CA) were against.
 
I was one of the non-ca members who voted for it :p
 
Back
Top