I wasn't planning on posting this so soon but with the state of the war it seems like it is time.

Currently elections (and polls) follow the American Democracy system. The winner isn't always the best candidate, but the candidate who is able to mobilize the most voters. We don't always get the best candidate as the winner, and we don't always get the candidate with the most support from active members as the winner.


Classes of People
Note, some people fall into multiple categories.

Recruits: People who haven't played their first battle night match. We honestly have no idea how active in the community they will become. A recruit could become the next Myth or they could disappear in a week.

Regular Attendees: People who regularly show up to battle night (not necessarily active in the forums)

Active Forum Members: People who regularly participate in the forums (not necessarily active in battle nights)

Inactive Members: People who neither regularly participate in the forums nor participate in battle nights.

Currently all four classes of members are allowed to participate in elections and have equally weighted votes.


Who Do Field Marshals Represent?
The people who are represented by the Field Marshals are the people who should be voting in the elections.

Recruits: Clearly the recruits are represented by the Field Marshals. In fact, the recruits are probably the people who need the most representation. Field Marshal policies can either help get the recruit situated in the community for a long term say or ignore the recruit and cause them to leave.

Regular Attendees: This people are fighting in the war for the Field Marshal. They need to be represented because the Field Marshal is responsible for many policies that effect the battle night experience.

Active Forum Members: How are these people represented by the Field Marshal? The Field Marshal doesn't really do many things for these people. That said, these people are active in the forums. That means they are usually much more knowledgable about FC politics, the leadership abilities of the Field Marshal candidates, and usually have a significant resume of leadership in the community. While they may not be directly represented by the Field Marshal, their opinions are probably the most well informed of any of the voters.

Inactive Members: These people no longer participate in the community, but if called upon by an old friend they can log on to FC and vote in the elections. These people really shouldn't be eligible to participate in elections.

Only Recruits, Regular Attendees, and Active Forum Members should be eligible voters since they the people the Field Marshals represent or have valuable knowledge to contribute to the community.


The Recruit Dilemma

While recruits need to be represented by the Field Marshal, they usually do not know enough about the candidates to form their own opinions. Instead, they will usually vote for whom their squad leader tells them to vote. This creates a pool of uninformed voters who can easily swing an election. The recruits are usually placed in a squad with like-minded people, so what their squad leader wants is probably in the best interest of the recruit. In addition, the squad leader should be well informed about the candidates and able to make a good decision for the recruit.


Alternatives to Army Elections

Global Elections
Currently, Field Marshal Elections are restricted to a specific army. A Global Election where the two candidates with the most votes are the Field Marshals (first place gets color choice), would open up the leadership pool and allow for more diversity in the elections. The Field Marshal represents more than just their army. The Field Marshal should be somebody who represents the community and thus should be elected by the entire community. This will also help with distributing leadership talent between the armies. If one army has two fantastic Field Marshal candidates, we can have both of them as Field Marshals if we had a Global Election.

Squad Votes
Most of the elections in FC are split along squad lines. The squad leadership determines which candidate they want to support, and then the squad members go out and vote as the squad leadership directs. Instead of forcing all of the squad members to go out and vote, we could have a system where each squad casts a single vote for the entire squad. Not all squads are created equally, so it might also be necessary to weight the squads votes differently. A squad vote system would have the added benefit of making the election process more efficient. Instead of waiting for a week (or however long the elections stay open), we would have results once each squad gets together and discusses which candidate they want to support. When all of the squads have cast their vote, we can end the election and move on with other important peacetime decisions.


Houdini's Opinion
Personally, I think a Squad Vote system would be ideal. It would fix the issue with recruits being uniformed and voting. It would prevent inactive community members from voting. It would make the election process more efficient. However, a squad vote probably be more work that it is worth for the current state of the community. Squads are not as stable as they once were and agreeing on a system to weight squads votes will be nearly impossible.

A Global Election would be possible for the current community. This would make the elections much more interesting and could allow the active, neutral community members to cast votes. Recruits would probably still vote as their squad leader directs, but with a larger electorate would hopefully dilute the impact of recruit votes. Inactive voters could still be a problem, so we could make some sort of activity requirement for voting (e.g. posting in the forums during the last war or participating in a Battle Night during the last war, etc). Or we could just ignore the inactive voters like we always have and hope that a larger electorate dilutes the votes of the inactive people.