Results of a Fictional Election

I've been involved in a political simulation (a game) on reddit called CMHoC.

The Canadian Model House of Commons recently held elections for all 54 seats of Parliament. You can watch the livestream of the results here

CMHoC is part of the "model world" where a reality of an earth is shared with other model sims, such as in the US or UK. An election in CMHoC was called at the end of June and election day was July 3rd.

In the last election in February, the New Democratic Party took top spot with 11 seats, followed by the Liberals at 8, the Libertarians at 8, the Conservatives at 7, the Socialists at 5, and the various others at 2.

Since then the Libertarian party all but folded, and the Socialists faced serious stability problems. The governing coalition heading into the election of the NDP, Liberals, and Socialists, faced a challenge in getting re-elected.

CMHoC changed its election system from STV to Proportional Representation. It was decided that each MP would have an individual riding, but they would be elected regionally. Thus, 4 people, for example, will win seats, proportionally, in the Atlantic, but, each of the 4 MPs can choose a riding to represent within the Atlantic itself, as, this helps with realism.

The election saw 3 major parties and 6 minor parties contesting for seats.

MAJOR PARTIES:

NDP:
The New Democratic Party of CMHoC is similar to the more moderate wing of the NDP in real life (IRL) or the more left wing of the Justin Trudeau Liberals. Their leader and Prime Minister is VendingMachineKing or VMK who has served as leader for 18 months, which, in game terms, is equivalent to serving for 18 years.

Liberal:
The Liberal Party of CMHoC is lead by Karomne, who has played the game since its opening rounds in 2015, 25 months ago. The Liberals are similar to the right-wing of the IRL Liberals and the more moderate wing of the IRL Conservatives. They entered the election leading in all the polls.

Conservative:
The Conservative Party of CMHoC is more libertarian than the IRL Tories, but has a wide range of members including moderates and even progressives. Their leader is Wagbo, who has been in the position for nearly a full IRL year.

MINOR PARTIES:

Socialist:
Two things make the Socialists much smaller now than at the previous election. The first was a purge of older and inactive members from the party, done, if I understand, to prevent people with connections to these inactive members from staging a "coup" of sorts against the party (as many of these inactive members may well be active elsewhere in the model world) The second thing damaging the party is defections. Both the ACF and Radicals are full of former Socialists. The party is lead by Hayley. She was elected in April and has held the leadership since that time.

Libertarians:
Lyra, the Libertarian leader, is a highly controversial figure. She decided to donate all of her party's seats to the Conservatives in the middle of the last term. She is the only Libertarian candidate in this election, but is a highly public figure in CMHoC and may thus be able to count on grassroot support from voters. The party has sometimes been accused of being AnCap (Anarcho-Capitalist)

CHP:
The Christian Heritage Party is mostly populated by members active elsewhere in the model world. They contested the last election but failed to win a seat. They are similar to the IRL CHP in policy.

Liberty:
Prior to the mass seat donation, the Libertarians had an internal civil war sparked by a change to the party constitution that some members felt violated the amending process. As a result, two high profile Libertarians were removed from the party and, along with other disgruntled Libertarians, went on to form what is now known as the Liberty Party. The party is lead by Redwolf, and was formerly known as the "Reformed Libertarians" until action by the Lyra lead Libertarians forced a change to their name.

ACF:
The Anti-Capitalist Front is a left-wing party with many former Socialist members. Lead by Kinth, the party has been accused by some of being a "one man band"

Radical:
The Radical Party is lead by Partisa, a popular figure and a known left-wing rabble rouser. The party was able to score many high-profile defections from a number of different political parties including the Socialists, NDP, and Liberty.



Polls indicated an interesting race shaping up.

Things began to change with the campaign. Prior to the start of the campaign, voters had only been looking at things like bills passed or which MPs actually bothered to turn up and vote; but once things started rolling, voters also began to take into account debate performance, and performances at Question Period, and so forth. As well, the campaign itself had an impact on the race, especially in areas like Toronto.

In the end, the results were as follows:

The Liberals managed a plurality of seats. The Tories were damaged in Toronto by their decision to run weaker candidates, bringing down their vote in the area, as well as the design of the system itself, allowing only 4 seats from the area. Elections Canada CMHoC will be looking at this when making refinements to the system before the next election.

The Liberals were helped by an endorsement by Liberty in areas where Liberty had no candidates.

In what followed, we saw a surprise, with the Liberals forming an official coalition with Liberty, and working out a confidence and supply arrangement with the Conservatives. Parliament itself will look like this:

All in all a great election and process, and its still not over. Many Liberals are unhappy with the C&S with the Tories as it binds them to some quite right-libertarian policies, and at least one plans to vote against the Throne Speech itself. I meanwhile get to watch the fun from my seat in the Senate.

This is what's been sucking my time in the past few days, but with a Throne Speech expected soon (hopefully) that should release the pent up activity levels and allow things to return to normal.

I highly recommend CMHoC for anyone looking for a low-roleplay canadian political simulation