The CSM 17 Election Results

On Thursday, CCP announced the results of the election for the 17th iteration of the Council of Stellar Management. The winners (and the round of the election simulation they were elected) are below:

• Angry Mustache - Goonswarm Federation (Round 1)
• Arsia Elkin - Electus Matari (Round 34)
• Brisc Rubal - The Initiative. (Round 1)
• Jinx De'Caire - Brave Collective (Round 34)
• Kazanir - Goonswarm Federation (Round 1)
• Kenneth Feld - Pandemic Legion (Round 1)
• Luke Anninan - Fraternity. (Round 1)
• Mark Resurrectus - Turbofeed or Glory (Round 34) 
• Pandoralica - The Initiative. (Round 33)
• Storm Delay - Pandemic Horde (Round 28)

Turnout this year was 30,814 votes, a decline of  19.1% from CSM 16's 38,086 votes. Even when taking into account the player decline since the end of World War Bee 2/Beeitnam War, interest in voting is down. The average player user count during the CSM 16 election was approximately 20,000 accounts. During the election this year, the ACU number hovered around 18,000 for a decline of 10%. An alternative explanation is that many players, instead of abandoning the game, have switched from paying Omega accounts to free-to-play Alpha accounts. So instead of a loss of interest in the CSM, CCP lost even more money from its corporate wallet.

The results pretty much went as expected. Seven of the seats went to members of the five largest sov holding alliances in EVE. The eighth winning candidate from null sec, Kenneth Feld, is from the 12th largest sov holding alliance. The ninth winner, Arsia Elkin, is an incumbent. Incumbents tend to win, even those best known for role playing and factional warfare. The final winner, wormholer Mark Resurrectus, finished 12th last year and was primed to win with the collapse of Test Alliance Please Ignore following last year's war.

One of the questions I ask of potential CSM candidates is whether they can attract 1000 first place votes and over 2000 total votes. In the 10-year history of CSM elections conducted using the single transferrable vote system, only three who reached this number failed to win a seat: Nathan Jameson (1616/2430) and Banlish (1213/2173) in the CSM 8 election and Sort Dragon (1500/2321) in 2019. All seven candidates who achieved these numbers won this year.

One of the stories CCP tried to create on its streams was Pandoralica's popularity across the EVE player base lifting him to victory. But did Pando really come from far back to claim victory? Actually no. After the first round, Pando was in 12th place.

1. Kazanir (met quota, elected)
2. Angry Mustache (met quota, elected)
3. Luke Anninan (met quota, elected)
4. Kenneth Feld (met quota, elected)
5. Brisc Rubal (met quota, elected)
6. Storm Delay - 2551 votes
7. Mark Resurrectus - 1468 votes
8. Jinx De'Caire - 1343 votes
9. Arsia Elkin - 995 votes
10. Torvald Uruz - 862 votes
11. Alasker - 746 votes
12. Pandoralica - 744 votes

Pando had passed both Torvald Uruz and Alasker at the end of round 11 and the winners gradually pulled away for the win. Compared to the CSM 12 election, when Yukiko Kami came back to win a seat in the final round, this year's election was downright sedate.