I. Introduction
Hello everyone! This is your Head Election Clerk, Dobs, coming at you with a post-mortem of the November 2019 Federal Election. In an effort to increase transparency, I’ve decided to revive the post-mortem. This was a tradition that hasn’t been continued for about a year and I think now is a fine time to explain what went down this election, what plans I have for immediate change, and what more long-term goals will stem from this election. As with all election results, they were thoroughly audited by both myself and Nate. Likewise, any and all questions about them can be directed either to your party leaders and if they do not have the answers, me. We’ve come a long way in determining how elections are run and we have much more progress to make together as a community. I hope with the re-continuation of these benchmarks taken roughly every 3 months at the conclusion of each election cycle, we can make that progress better together as a community. In this post-mortem I will be discussing some of the Best and Not Best events from the campaign, the impact of District Campaigning, reforms to be made in the realm of Press Mods and debates, as well as the future of the Campaign and Events system. Now, without further ado, let’s get to the fun stuff.
II. Best Events
In this section I’d like to discuss a few different aspects of great events. There were quite a few of these events this election. This is indicative of a trend towards better and better events I am noticing among the player base. Keep it up you guys! This community is building a strong culture of hard work and high quality events. This election ran high-octane events so let’s take a look at some of the best events in a few different categories. I asked my clerks to send me their best and they came through big time, let’s take a look together.
Ads
The backbone of visual events, we saw some incredibly impactful ads. I was incredibly impressed by the talent of some of our candidates. I pulled 3 ads to examine together.
Ok this is technically a magazine, but still it’s an incredible visual. It’s colorful, it keeps the candidate front and present, and it presents effectively what the candidate wants forward while also engaging is a bit of light worldbuilding. It can advertise with the best of the posters and is a benchmark for both an original take on visuals and a solid effort at immersing the grader in the event.
Burning your opponent is always a great way to make a grader chuckle and score some big time points. In this case the grader was me and the big time points were instrumental in a tight win for Kingmaker. It’s not overt in its criticism, it is tasteful. It’s not loud and pushy in its illustration, it is calm and clean. And most of all, it shows engagement with his opponent’s events. That kind of thing can go a long way. This type of poster is a staple when your opponent makes a location oops. Even though we don’t do negative mods or attack ads, don’t be afraid to flex your skills both graphic and geographic to stand out.
Memes are a great way to both make a policy point and engage the viewer. These were fun to take in and are a fun break for most graders sorting through the same old “Vote for Me, Here’s My Face” poster.
Videos
Giving an interview is one thing, committing your voice for an hour is entirely something else. This entire event was a great example of where incredible work ethic can get you. All I can say is God Bless King for sitting through this entire thing to give a solid grade.
While, interview shows are great originality, the lionshare of video content is in the form of TV ads. This ad is a solid reiteration of the classic TV spot. It is well-edited and expresses what GA wants to get across. The hours of work are apparent and lending one’s voice to an ad is a great way to rack up points as long as it is done well, which in several core policy details is exemplified here.
Text Events
The classic text event is ubiquitous, but that doesn’t mean it must be dull. Unlike with videos and ads, where effort is the key to major success, text events must be original to pack a punch. Of course, in all events, the 3 categories of originality, effort, and appeal are important. However, to make a text event soar, it must be original because it is competing with so many others. While silly, the Gunnz goes to Laugh Factory was a fun read and therefore scored well. Likewise, if done well, a new experience expressed in writing can be captivating. This was certainly the case with PresentSale’s Shark ad. Both of these are original and both of them are solidly written. They don’t have to be super long, in fact, be aware of keeping events short enough that you do not repeat yourself or get off-topic. If you find yourself droning on from topic to topic in one event, I would recommend breaking it up into two events which will a) be easier on the grader and b) likely be more electorally fruitful for your campaign.
A Word on Categories
Not every great event is going to be a perfect event, and often times campaigns suffer by trying to perfect an event and stuffing too much into it. In these campaigns, perfect can be the enemy of great. The following two text posts from the Sierra race for President are a great example of how while certain events don’t hit perfectly in every category, they can really shine in at least 2 of the 3.
Hurricane and Gunnz really went all out on these policy wonk proposals. Are they going to drum up support from the masses? No. But are they damn good example of some of the best policy-building in the sim? Hell yes. And did they both help each candidate a great deal in what became the crucial state of Sierra? Absolutely.
Don’t let perfect be the enemy of your great event.
Western Case Study on Originality Part 1
Speaking of categories, I do love an original event. Often the best events are those that go out on a limb. That’s really all that I can say for this event. This was likely my favorite event I graded. What am I saying, it definitely was. All props to Ibney for this masterpiece. It’s fun and original but it has a point. That’s the key, there must be a point behind the event. All props to Ibney for making my late night grading and calculating on this one.
III. Not the Best Events
This election saw a lot of great events. But we also some events that did not fit into the best category. These events could be improved in some way and didn’t make the impact their candidate likely hoped they would. This is not to denigrate them or their authors, but to enrich the sim with how to better the campaign season.
Posters
Remember when I said that burning your opponents in a clean, clear, and most importantly smart style was essential for a good poster? Well when you call your opponents dumb and fat and overlay Arial text over a landscape, chances are your ad quality isn’t exactly where you want it. With a little more style and a lot less ad hominem, even in jest, this ad could have been a fun comparison. Instead, it throws some words that don’t mean much to the voter over a landscape which is irrelevant to the point being made.
Similarly, when originality, effort, and appeal are king, the last thing you want is to do a worse version of an already famous poster. Take this grainy Obama-inspired style as an example. The words on the side with plain black arial over white border don’t do the central image any favors and distract from what the voter/grader should be seeing. This could be made much better if the candidate lost the white border and either cut their losses with the central picture or worked it into a better, more policy-oriented ad. Remember when I talked about “Vote for me, here’s my face” ads? This is a prime example of “Vote for me, here’s a distorted image of my face”.
Videos
It should be said that anytime a candidate puts together a video, it’s probably not going to do poorly because as long as it at least looks pretty, the effort score will reflect the time it took to edit it. But just because you’re not getting 2’s doesn’t mean you’re getting 7’s or 8’s. This ad is a prime example of a wasted opportunity. It has no policy or message beyond a song and some generic images that might go over well in GL. Good attempt at the edit, it just fails to stick the landing in a meaningful way that broadcasts any feeling of original ad-making or an appealing message.
Text Events
As I’ve said, text events are the most common event-type in the campaign. But that doesn’t mean they have to be trite or uninspired. Unfortunately, a page of promises that could realistically be promised by any party is not going to cut the standards for text events that are fun and breathe new life into this classic way of communicating your campaign’s message. Likewise, I really encourage good details and engaging writing as opposed to something like this or this. There are lots of ways to go wrong on text events because they are so common, I really recommend running speeches and situations through text by your leadership or whomever is supposed to proofread or help you with your events. Make sure to keep effort up when writing so as not to leave the grader unimpressed with your work.
Western Case Study on Originality Part 2
So back to the tale of two events posted by the Gunnz campaign in Sierra. We saw that really fun and effective video, a triumph of original thought. But it boggles my mind that the same campaign could then turn around to post this. Now don’t get me wrong, as a creative writing assignment it’s… ok. But if you would notice that it doesn’t actually engage with any voters until the final sentence, essentially making this a one-sentence attempt at winning over votes. It’s a wasted event in a campaign where events are finite. This didn’t even score well for originality because while, yes, it is original and different, it’s not an event! I’m not going to grade a cat well on originality and being different if he turns up for Crufts. There needs to be a level-bar that all events meet to be considered an event and actually engaging voters is a good place to start. The moral of this case study is to please let yourself think out of the box, but try to stay on the reservation.
IV. On District Campaigning
The Art of the Triage
I think we all saw it this election. Gunnz gave up on GL and CH, Hurricane forewent AC and DX. This of course, left Sierra as the prime swing state that ultimately swung for Gunnz even as Hurricane won the popular vote because he won GL and CH with 60+% while Gunnz fell short of that in AC and DX.
Let me be clear, every state was in play at the beginning of this campaign. I was, in fact, a bit boggled by the fact that the campaigns gave up on large margins and decided to let Sierra decide the election. Nevertheless, this is what happened. But it goes deeper than that, a lot of weight was placed on SR-2 this election, but that’s not where this election was won. Both candidates spent enough time there that SR-2 wound up being close enough (52-48), that Hurricane’s margin of +500,000 was not enough to offset Gunnz’s massive margin in SR-3 (66-34, +1,500,000). How did this come to be? Well, the simple fact of this Presidential election is that it all came down to better strategy and one event either way. One event either way in either SR-1 or SR-3 would have been the balance of the state and the election.
Allow me to explain.
Had Gunnz only campaigned in SR-1 with the aforementioned Alien Dream event, he would have lost the election because SR-1 would have been a Hurricane blow out. Wisely, he did not, and popped one event there. This event was enough to reduce Hurricane’s margin in SR-1 to +200,000. Similarly, Hurricane allowed SR-3 to get away from him, not campaigning there at all. Had he placed one event of his average score (6.6/10) in SR-3, he would have swung the balance of the state to him, cutting Gunnz’ 1.5 million vote margin down to under 100k. This election has easily been the closest in recent memory. Gunnz fails to campaign an extra time in SR-1? Hurricane wins. Hurricane places an event in SR-3? Hurricane wins. Let this be a message to all candidates to never let your opponent be the only candidate campaigning in a district of millions. Especially when the state is in play, such a lapse in strategy cost a candidate the White House this election. This brings me to my next point.
Never Let a District Get Away From You
This is a rule that, if followed, will save many a candidate. Unfortunately for him, it did not save PresentSale. The most populous district in CH, CH-3, should, logically, feature the most campaign traffic. This is, of course, no order to abandon the others, but when your opponent (Melp) is leaving you (PS) in the dust in the largest district in the state, there is a problem. Particularly when you begin with a polling deficit, these are errors that cannot be made if you hope for victory. Melp won CH-3 by 1.3 million votes, or roughly the entire margin of victory in Chesapeake. The same rule that dunked Hurricane dunked PresentSale. Never Let a District Get Away From You! If you do, you may just find the bittersweet reality that one district holds the balance of the entire race and that is a lot easier to fix than when your opponent’s lead is spread out across the state.
A final word on this topic, I say this not to rag on Hurricane or Present just as Chapo didn’t say it to rag on me roughly 1 year ago, I say it as words to the wise for stronger and more robust candidates in the next election.
V. On Party Mods
I’m going to keep this section brief, but I don’t think it’s any grand surprise to state that the GOP found their greatest successes tonight on the back of their incredible party mods racked up throughout the term. Most of this was well-earned. But after review of the calculator, another part of this was exploiting a weakness in the code that has been around since the days of Chapo. It’s a change I’d like to make, one of two major reforms prompted by this election. That change is in the realm of press mods. Currently, press articles are given the same prominence in boosting up a party that a federal bill is. This has been incredibly exploited in the form of press spamming. It is in my plans to stop both bill and press spamming over this coming term. While bill-spamming is a bit trickier to deal with, press spamming should be simpler. I will be engaging in a dialogue first with the party leaders and then with the community to discuss how to re-weight press mods so that press spamming becomes less prominent and better reflects how we as a community ought to reflect the different kinds of work our players put in. My initial idea is to weight press mods at half of what we weight bills. The GOP certainly won with bills, but it was Press Mods that gave them their dominant standing this election. Congratulations are in order of course, but moving forward I think it will be best to re-weight press mods in a more equitable manner to their legislative counterparts.
VI. On Debates
Gunnz and Hurricane
I think a lot of folks put too much stock in debate performance between the two nominees. But I also don’t think they did so in a misguided manner. Another flaw of the Chapo calculator which was impossible for me to notice until I ran a Presidential election was just how little the Presidential debate impacted the final results. That’s because under the current system, debate scores are thrown into the giant pot of base mods instead of the much more reactive campaign score. I don’t think is right, because while debates aren’t the key factor for most voters, a major victory for Hurricane (64-36) in the debate, should have been reflected in a larger way than it was. There are a couple different solutions in the Presidential arena. We could make Debates 20% of the final campaign score (~7% of the final score). We could also directly ad the campaign scores of each as the same as an event (I’m partial to this one). Either way, like with press mod reform, I’ll be speaking to the Party Leaders ASAP and then making my decision based off of the feedback I hear from your representatives.
Elsewhere
Like with the Presidential debates, all other debates, while certainly more impactful than with the Presidency, are also added into base mods. I’ll be moving those scores into the campaign which is a much easier calculator construction to change than with the Presidency because the Presidency spans several states while all others are confined to only a single state or even easier, a single district.
VII. Final Words: The Future of the Department of Election Clerks
Let me begin this final section by making the announcement that most of you are likely expecting. I will be remaining Head Elections Clerk. I do this because I believe I can take the job with more accountability and transparency than I have for the past 6 months. I recognize that most of the sim did not have confidence in me and many likely still do not. However, I believe it would be wrong for me to step aside at this juncture. I have heard the community and changes have been made, starting with this election, and they will continue to be made. I believe I bring the experience and ability needed of the HEC and quite frankly, I love doing this job for this community.
My post-election survey showed that nearly 7 in 10 participants enjoyed this election and that nearly 2 in 3 thought it was an improvement over my previous elections. These are good numbers but they are not the numbers that this community should have. I have been working with Party Leadership and the community on ways to make elections and the time in between more transparent and myself more available to this community. To that effect, one problem on communication I noticed this election was the lack of clarity on event submission rules. I will be developing a guide separate from the election announcement that will be attached at the beginning of each election to keep these rules standardized and public to hopefully avoid any feeling of inconsistency or unfairness generated by event submission standards.
Similarly, as many of you know. I have taken over the role of Chair of the Events Board as is constitutionally required of me. I have re-organized the Board into a more Board-like structure. I have hired 4 great division heads who in turn have great clerks working under them. The Division Heads will all be working with me personally as I do my best to turn their ideas into canon-reality while they and their clerks do what they do best: brainstorm ideas and build events. In this way, there is a layer system where I am able to moderate Events and be kept in the loop on everything, while also know that I have incredibly able people managing the events as I execute the other responsibilities of the HEC. You can expect to soon see a “Meet the EB” post where I will explain this new structure and who is leading it in the coming days.
I hope this post-mortem has been educational or enlightening for you and if you still have questions about any topic covered here, do not hesitate to ask me. I’d like to thank you all for a great election and I hope to run many more with you. They couldn’t run without our wonderful participants or our wonderful election clerks who performed incredibly well and graded incredibly quickly and thoroughly this election to keep results and polls timely.
God Bless you all and I’ll see you next time,
/u/reagan0 (Dobs)
Head Election Clerk
