Fun Facts About The CSM 16 Election Results

The election results for EVE Online's 16th Council of Stellar Management came out on Monday. I know, people really aren't interested in the CSM, especially with a lot of people shouting the sky is falling. But the election deserves one final look. Hopefully people will find something interesting.

Turnout increased. This year's 38,086 votes cast in the election represents a 5.4% increase over last year's 36,120. Overall, the CSM 16 election had the fifth most voters in CSM history. The top five voter turnout elections are:

1. CSM 7 (2012): 59,109 votes
2. CSM 8 (2013): 49,702 votes
3. CSM 6 (2011): 49,096 votes
4. CSM 5 (2010): 39,433 votes
5. CSM 16 (2021): 38,086 votes

Filling out the ballot. For the first time since CSM elections switched to the single transferrable vote format, a majority of ballots cast had votes for the maximum number of candidates. A record 20,446 ballots were completely filled out in 2021, representing 53.7% of the ballots cast. Below is a list of the percentages of completely filled out ballots going back to CSM 8.

CSM 08 - 33.8%

CSM 09 - 33.8%

CSM 10 - 30.0%

CSM 11 - 27.5%

CSM 12 - 30.4%

CSM 13 - 38.3%

CSM 14 - 47.1%

CSM 15 - 40.6%

CSM 16 - 53.7%

Incumbents win. One of the reasons CCP instituted term limits to begin next year was due to the power of incumbency. If a player has a strong organization behind him, victory is almost assured. This year, 7 of the 8 members running for reelection won. The only incumbent to lose was Phantomite, who was eliminated in the 27th round with 720 votes.

The top 10 after round 1. I hear people ask if the candidates in the lead after round 1 ever wind up losing. The top 11 candidates at the end of round 1 were:

1. Merkelchen - met quota
2. Gobbins - met quota
3. Innominate - met quota
4. Kenneth Feld - 3282
5. Brisc Rubal - 3084
6. Vily - 2515
7. I Beast - 2449
8. progodlegend - 1859
9. Uriel Paradisi Anteovnuecci - 1163
10. Mike Azariah - 1115
11. Suitonia - 1054

Uriel wound up eliminated in round 34 while Suitonia reached the quota in the 34th round of 36 total rounds. With Arsia Elkin only receiving 2241 votes when eliminated in the final round, effectively 7 of the 10 winners were decided by the end of the first round.

The 1000/2000 rule in CSM elections still holds mostly true. When people used to ask whether or not they had a shot at winning a seat on the CSM, I asked two questions. First, could they garner 1000 first place votes. The second, did they have a path to 2000 total votes. If the answer to both is yes, then the candidate is a serious contender.

The rule held true again this year. Arsia Elkin came close to breaking the rule, but only received 978 initial first place votes. The three candidates in the nine CSM elections to break the rule were Nathan Jameson (1616/2430) and Banlish (1213/2173) in the CSM 8 election and Sort Dragon (1500/2321) in 2019.

Voting Blocs. In this year's election, there were nine combinations of votes that occurred over 400 times. These 9 tickets accounted for 34.8% of the votes cast. One of the tickets did not come the major null sec blocs. I am not sure if Northern Coalition. and Pandemic Legion had separate tickets, so I listed them separately.

The Imperium (6496)
Merkelchen, Innominate, Brisc Rubal, Baculus Orden, Broodin, Angry Mustache, Micromancer, Xenuria, Suitonia, I Beast

Pandemic Horde (1782)
Gobbins, progodlegend, Kenneth Feld, RonUSMC, Phantomite, Vily, Arsia, Elkin, Uriel Paradisi Anteovnuecci, Reicher514, Seddow

Winter Coalition (1068)
Kenneth Feld, Rich Richman, progodlegend, Gobbins, Seddow, Vily, Phantomite, Arsia Elkin, Angry Mustache, Maldavius

Test Alliance Please Ignore (796)
Vily, progodlegend, RonUSMC, Gobbins, Phantomite, Arsia Elkin

I Beast (772)
I Beast

Non-null (765)
Uriel Paradisi Anteovnuecci, DutchGunner, Baculus Orden, Dr Spodumain, I Beast

The Initiative. (628)
Brisc Rubal, Innominate, I Beast, Suitonia, Mark Resurrectus, teddy Gbyc, Broodin, Phantomite, Mike Azariah, Arsia Elkin

Northern Coalition./Pandemic Legion (519)
Kenneth Feld, progodlegend, Gobbins, RonUSMC, Phantomite, Arsia Elkin

Northern Coalition./Pandemic Legion 2? (441)
Kenneth Feld, progodlegend, Gobbins, RonUSMC, Vily, Uriel Paradisi Anteovnuecci, Reicher514, Mike Azariah

A lot of players in coalitions don't vote the full ticket. The total count of votes that matched the top 3 spots of each ticket were:

• The Imperium - 7144
• Pandemic Horde - 2410
• Test Alliance Please Ignore - 1655
• Northern Coalition./Pandemic Legion - 1418
• Winter Coalition - 1205
• Non-null - 837
• The Initiative. - 789

When using the top 3 criteria, 40.6% of the votes cast matched one of the seven combinations. Including I Beast's 772 independent votes, the total increases to 42.6% of the vote.

Strong Imperium turnout. What a difference a year makes for Imperium turnout. In 2020, Innominate didn't reach quota until round 29 (out of 30 rounds) and Brisc had to win on his own. This year, Innominate reached quota in round one and Brisc received a trickle down of 706 votes. Combined with the 2171 initial first place votes Brisc received, The Imperium had guaranteed winning three seats early in the process. 

The Imperium vote then trickled down to Suitonia beginning with 47 votes in round 20. By round 34, the trickle from Brisc Rubal reached 824 votes and pushed Suitonia across the finish line.

In raw numbers, the amount of votes cast for the official Imperium ballot increased 57.9%, from 4115 ballots in CSM 15 to 6496 for CSM 16. Using the top 3 comparison, the turnout only increased 51.7%, from 4690 ballots matching the top 3 slots of the official Imperium ballot compared to 7114 this year.

Progodlegend the show stopper. PAPI went with a strategy to attempt to elect Vily, Gobbins, and Kenneth Feld, with progodlegend hopefully winning based on the vote from Brave Collective combined with the trickle from the three main candidates. The strategy worked, but with progodlegend not meeting quota, the trickle from five major coalition tickets ended with him.

How was Chinese turnout? With none of Winter Coalition's original candidates passing CCP's screening process, a question arose whether the members of Winter Coalition would turn out. Using the top 3 vote comparison between last year's turnout and this year's, Winter Coalition turnout fell by 26.3%. If I expand the criteria to include the 470 ballots that only marked Maria Taylor last year, the decline was 42.8%.