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Dev Diary #45 - Elections

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Good evening and welcome once again to a Victoria 3 Development Diary! Today’s topic is elections. We’ll be covering the various laws that enable and affect voting, as well as the progression of Election Campaigns and how they affect political power in your country. We'll briefly be mentioning Political Parties in this dev diary, but they’re not the focus of this week - more on that next time! For now, I’ll just say that Political Parties in Victoria 3 exist in democracies and are made up of alliances of Interest Groups.

A country has Elections if it has any of the Distribution of Power laws that enable voting:
  • Landed Voting: Aristocrats, Capitalists, Clergymen, and Officers hold essentially all voting power, gaining a huge bonus to the Political Strength they contribute to their Interest Groups.
  • Wealth Voting: There is a Wealth Threshold that determines a pop’s eligibility to vote. Pops that can vote have more Political Strength.
  • Census Suffrage: The Wealth Threshold is significantly lower than in Wealth Voting. Literate pops contribute much more Political Strength to their Interest Groups.
  • Universal Suffrage: There is no Wealth Threshold for voting. Pop type and literacy do not grant additional Political Strength. Though of course a pop’s wealth will continue to contribute to their Political Strength, and Literacy will make pops more politically engaged.

Under the Wealth Voting Law, political power is held by the pops (and their Interest Groups) who can accumulate the most wealth, and largely denied entirely to the destitute. This naturally favors Aristocrats and the Landowners in more agricultural economies, while favoring Capitalists and the Industrialists in more industrialized economies.
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All of these laws are compatible with any of the Governance Principles laws. A country with the Monarchy law for instance could be an absolute monarchy with no voting system at all, or it could have Universal Suffrage - likewise a Republic might very well be a presidential dictatorship. If you are so inclined, you could even create a Council Republic or Theocracy that uses Wealth Voting (though it would be bound to create some political conflict, to put it lightly).

There are three factors that, when applicable, will prevent pops from voting entirely:
  1. Discrimination. Discriminated pops cannot vote in Elections.
  2. Living in an Unincorporated State. Only pops living in Incorporated States can participate in Elections. Pops living in, for example, a growing colony cannot vote.
  3. Politically Inactive pops do not vote, regardless of whether they are “legally” eligible. These pops are not part of any Interest Group, and tend to have low Literacy and/or Standard of Living. Peasants working in Subsistence Farms, for instance, are almost always Politically Inactive.

In 1913, suffragette Emily Davison was killed by the king’s horse during a race. A passionate believer in her cause, she had been arrested repeatedly by the British government and force-fed while on hunger strikes.
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This is a good opportunity to talk about the women’s suffrage movement. In Victoria 3, passing the Women’s Suffrage Law will greatly increase both your Workforce Ratio and your Dependent Enfranchisement. This means that a greater proportion of pops will be eligible to work in Buildings, and a much greater proportion of Dependents will now count towards the voting power of their pop. There will be very little support among Interest Groups to pass this Law in 1836 however. After researching Feminism (or having the technology spread to your country), politicians will begin to appear with the Feminist ideology, which causes them to strongly approve of Women’s Suffrage and disapprove of less egalitarian laws. Once you research Political Agitation, the suffrage movement will begin in full force. The ‘Votes for Women’ Journal Entry will appear, and events will trigger from it that will give you the opportunity to grow or suppress the Political Movement. You can complete the Journal Entry by passing the Law and having your first Election Campaign with women eligible to vote; alternatively you can ignore or suppress the movement until it loses its momentum and withers away.

Why, you ask, would you want to suppress the suffrage movement? If you’re striving for an egalitarian society you certainly wouldn’t. But if instead you’re trying to preserve the aristocracy and maintain a conservative nation then not only will your ruling Interest Groups strongly disapprove of Women’s Suffrage but it will also be very harmful to their political power. Greater Dependent Enfranchisement inherently benefits larger pops more than smaller pops (especially under more egalitarian Laws like Universal Suffrage where wealth counts for less), and it is inevitable that there are vastly more Laborers, Machinists, and Farmers than there ever will be Aristocrats or Capitalists. Pops may begin to wonder why the Lower Strata, the largest class, does not simply eat the other two.

The Whigs took a catastrophic hit in the polls after I repeatedly fired a negative election event to test the system.
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Elections happen every 4 years in countries with voting laws. An Election Campaign begins 6 months prior to a country’s Election date. Each Political Party is assigned a Momentum value at the beginning of the Campaign, which is a measure of the success of their campaign and is a major factor in determining how many Votes they will garner on election day. During this campaign, Momentum will fluctuate for each of the running Political Parties and impact the final result. Since Parties, Leaders, and many other aspects of the political scene in your country are likely to have changed in the years since the previous election, the Momentum from previous elections does not carry over and is reset. Momentum can be affected by chance, events, and the Popularity of Interest Group Leaders.

The Tories’ success in the last election empowered the Landed Gentry, though the sheer wealth of their aristocratic supporters is still the largest contributor to their Political Strength under Great Britain’s Wealth Voting law.
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When the Election Campaign ends, the votes are in and the results are set in place until the next election. Interest Groups receive additional Political Strength from their party’s Votes, which will be a major factor determining your Legitimacy and therefore the effectiveness of your government. The actual makeup of your government is still up to you; just like the electoral systems of most modern countries, winning the popular vote does not automatically mean that a certain party or coalition of parties gets to form a government. But the post-election strength of your Interest Groups and their Party affiliations should be a major consideration, especially if you’re forming a minority government.

In Victoria 3, Elections can be a powerful force for political change but also a source of volatility. Dealing with (and if you’re so inclined, manipulating) Election results will be a major consideration when you form your governments. In this dev diary I’ve mentioned Political Parties, and we know you’re eager to hear more about them since the last time we communicated on the topic. You’ll be pleased to discover that in next week’s dev diary we’ll be covering our design for Political Parties in more detail, so watch this space!
 
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Interest Groups receive additional Political Strength from their party’s Votes, which will be a major factor determining your Legitimacy and therefore the effectiveness of your government. The actual makeup of your government is still up to you​

This gets worse and worse. Obviously the devs are going for a society sandbox, rather than a living simulation. Disappointing.
 
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If Parties are alliances of Interest Groups, where do Trade Unionists go - social democrats or communists - as both of these had their foundations in trade unions? And who takes the place of the other party?
Yeah I would hope there can be some sort of internal factions within IGs... And if we can somehow influence it in some way so a faction can become dominant view (political traits?) of an IG...
 
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Elections happen every 4 years in countries with voting laws.

Is this moddable? Could we make it so that different countries have different election cycles?

The actual makeup of your government is still up to you; just like the electoral systems of most modern countries, winning the popular vote does not automatically mean that a certain party or coalition of parties gets to form a government.

Could you elaborate on this a little more?

Is it possible, modding or vanilla, that you can have a direct democracy, where the popular vote wins?

Does the game model representative democracy, where the POPs elect officials into government to represent them? Not IGs, but actual MPs, senators, etc?

Could our government have an electoral college system, like the United States has?
 
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Great DD but I am a little disappointed in that there was no mention of ways to rig or conduct...unofficially influence an election. I would feel something is wrong if the wheels of democracy can't be greese to produce a more, enlightened, outcome than simple mob rule would. :p
 
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Thank you for listening to the community on this topic. The lack of parties would have been a dealbreaker for me, so I’m very glad that you’ve changed your mind and included them.

I have some questions that will probably be answered in the next DD. For now, I just want to ask about types of democracy. You said that you don’t have to hand the reins of power to the winning party, but surely that only makes sense in non-democratic or parliamentary systems based on the Westminster model (such as the UK). Things work very differently in countries such as the U.S., where there are separate presidential and congressional/senate elections. Will these differences be factored in to the game?
 
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If we have the same electoral system, does the difference between being a monarchy or a republic have any effect on national politics?
 
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Thanks for the DD! My initial feeling is that elections seem a bit toothless, if their result just have a marginal effect on political power and government legitimacy. I agree that minority governments should be a thing, but they should lead to noticeable increase in radicalism and political crises, not just a small change in some modifier. What does legitimacy even do? Why should I worry about it? Secondly, I hope election events are not just click button A to support party X, or button B for party Y. I hope your actions in other spheres, like passing laws, constructing buildings, establishing trade or declaring wars, will have a greater bearing on party popularity than some random events disconnected from the rest of the game (which V2 suffered from)
 
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This gets worse and worse. Obviously the devs are going for a society sandbox, rather than a living simulation. Disappointing.
Why is it disappointing? I find the interest group system attractive because it allows for autocracies, oligarchies, etc. to be represented better than they were before. There are no more bizarre parties like the Tsarist party or Metternich's Faction. Having elections this way complements that system, makes it deeper. Allowing the player to continue to select interest groups at a hit to legitimacy can be thought of as rigging an election.
 
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But if instead you’re trying to preserve the aristocracy and maintain a conservative nation then not only will your ruling Interest Groups strongly disapprove of Women’s Suffrage but it will also be very harmful to their political power.

As far as I know quite often liberals were also against women's voting because at that time more women than men were religious and conservative.

The actual makeup of your government is still up to you

Shouldn't it be a separate law? Nomination of the government: Head of state/Parlament.

The issue whether the government and ministers are responsible before the king or before the chamber was pretty important but it looks like it's not a thing in Vic3.

Where is the senate? In Vic2 I liked to have senate by appointment and universal suffrage lower chamber.


You promised that we will have a pie charts but so far I didn't see much of them. Will we have a pie charts in government window showing interest groups and parties?


Im still not convinced to this legitimacy thing. If the only thing it does is making passing laws harder then it's not really an obstacle and I can have minority government no problem. I understand that I can nominate any minor interest group to government so I unlock their laws and then pass them after some time of waiting even if the chance of passing is like 5% it will pass sooner or later.
 
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A couple comments/questions, is there any link between turmoil/unrest and turnout? It seems to me that in democracies groups that are upset should be more inclined to vote and press their agenda.
ISTR that in the past, they discussed Radicals being more likely to vote and Loyalists less likely to vote, or less likely to vote for someone not currently in power.

Yeah I would hope there can be some sort of internal factions within IGs... And if we can somehow influence it in some way so a faction can become dominant view (political traits?) of an IG...
I think the intra-faction politics is handled by faction leaders - so the ideology of the Trade Unionist leader, for instance, might determine whether they're interested in a more radical Communist party or a centrist democratic party.

If we have the same electoral system, does the difference between being a monarchy or a republic have any effect on national politics?
Monarchs have more Authority, which lets them bypass some of the political mechanics depending on how strong the monarchy is.

For instance, in a democracy you want to bring influential IGs into the government to boost your legitimacy, which increases law adoption rate, making sure your laws pass in a sensible amount of time.

In a monarchy, excess Authority directly boosts law adoption rate, so you can keep your lackeys in government and power through the low legitimacy to pass whatever laws you want.
 
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It's a nice system, when I first heard about interest groups I had imagined them to be the perfect way to represent a more granular, interactive and interesting system to work with political parties. However, I think this would really shine if we ever get a proper system for representing Upper and Lower houses - maybe even a proper cabinet system to fully flesh out domestic politics but i'm getting ahead of my self. For what it's worth I am content.
 
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How does the women’s suffrage movement work in absolute monarchies like Japan? Will I be able to still enact it, to have Female Empresses beside just Emporer and also get woman in the workforce, while still not allowing any voting whatsoever?

Why would women's suffrage law affect succesion? Those are two completly separate issues.

But I agree that having succession law among the laws player can adjust would be good. The more ways to customize your nation the better.
 
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Why is it disappointing? I find the interest group system attractive because it allows for autocracies, oligarchies, etc. to be represented better than they were before. There are no more bizarre parties like the Tsarist party or Metternich's Faction. Having elections this way complements that system, makes it deeper. Allowing the player to continue to select interest groups at a hit to legitimacy can be thought of as rigging an election.

Because, if you can take the hit to legitimacy, elections don't matter. Just like every economic system plays as planned economy in practice, every political system can be a dictatorship of the player.
 
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When the Election Campaign ends, the votes are in and the results are set in place until the next election. Interest Groups receive additional Political Strength from their party’s Votes, which will be a major factor determining your Legitimacy and therefore the effectiveness of your government. The actual makeup of your government is still up to you; just like the electoral systems of most modern countries, winning the popular vote does not automatically mean that a certain party or coalition of parties gets to form a government. But the post-election strength of your Interest Groups and their Party affiliations should be a major consideration, especially if you’re forming a minority government.​
Wait, so elections only determine how much political strength interest groups have, not which interest groups are put "in charge" of the country? This seems rather off to me, while it might model systems without a strong executive and/or where it's easier to prevent change decently, it would not capture presidential or first-pass the post systems like the US where winning parties fully take over much of the government. You could have really weird scenarios where the Republicans win the 1860 election, but the player staffs the Federal government with Breckenridge and the Southern Democrats.

This just doesn't seem right from a design framework though; the cost to the player of playing as a democracy should be that they don't have direct control over who is elected into the government (at the advantage of making the people less likely to revolt since they have a stake in running the country). Letting the player keep putting their own preferred interest groups in the government regardless of votes, even with the legitimacy debuff, feels like the wrong way of going about letting the player influence politics in democratic systems.
 
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Thanks and super excited about this.. Can we pretty please set elections to actually occur on the same date every 4 years?

E.g. Vicky 2 and Stellaris will begin the election after the 4 (or however many years) meaning the election is always (number of years + length of election) which is obviously not how it works in real life. Maybe set elections to 3.5 years in coding?
 
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Where does the notion that peasants don't vote from from? Especially if you have universal suffrage?
 
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Of course we’ll see how the political parties work next week, but from what I see here it seems like what they introduce is a good start for formal political life in your countries.

I hope interest groups can give their support to more than one political parties, and I would really like that if parliamentarian/presidential systems were modelled, as well as votation methods, but I understand it might be a tall order for release.
 
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