OOC: 1579 Akitian election observers

[Zabuza825]

Okay, so here is the OOC topic where I'll answer the questions of anyone who wanted to have sent election observers to Akitsu for the 1579 elections. Since this is an OOC topic, everything I say here will represent IC fact (unless explicitly stated otherwise). Ask any questions you want, I'll answer to the best of my ability.

Just some basic facts:

• Polls, especially exit polls, are still completely banned.
  
• This was done entirely with electronic voting, there were NO PAPER BALLOTS.
  
• Voter turnout for this election would be around 45%, and the real figure would be the figure the Akitian government uses so they'd report about the same in voter turnout. This is a significant decrease from the average voter turnout in Akitsu, and is an even further decrease from the last election that the fascists did. The fascist government would argue this low turnout was due to the fact that emergency elections were only held 1 year prior (in other words they'd blame "campaign burnout").
  
• Parties other than the ones listed were allowed to participate. Now, the parties that were banned in this post wouldn't have been allowed to participate (because, well, they're banned), but parties like the Nationalist Party, Liberal Democratic Party, and Democratic Party (the three largest parties in Akitsu pre-coup) would've been allowed to campaign. They just didn't even get a single seat in the National Legislature.
  
• Yes, the above means that the ones I listed are the only ones that won any seats. In case you haven't noticed they all have several key positions that match up - namely their support for militarism, Akitian nationalism, and some form of state involvement in the economy. Their foreign policies would also be really similar. The main differences in policy would come in domestic policy, with most of the parties being some variation of right-wing and there only being one party that one that's left-wing.
  
• All writing in the poll booths would've been in traditional characters - which haven't been taught in Akitsu for decades (at least 60-70 years). As such, much of the younger generation wouldn't know it. The only people who would be guarentee'd to know traditional characters are the elderly and young far-right ultranationalist neoconservatives (neoconservatism in Akitsu would more closely resemble neoconservatism in Japan than say, neoconservatism in the US or any other country).
  

That's all that I can think of for now, go ahead and ask any questions you have now! I'll also add any info I forgot to mention in new posts, if any comes up.

[BrumBrum]

EFF:Why did your government opt to use electronic voting a system notable for its potential to be corrupted and how can we trust the software was fair?
How was the issue of alot of people not understanding traditional characters been resolved?
What justifiable reason could you have for banning exit polls?

[Zabuza825]

EFF:Why did your government opt to use electronic voting a system notable for its potential to be corrupted and how can we trust the software was fair?

GOVERNMENT EXPLANATION: To increase the efficiency of voters casting votes and the counting process, eliminating long lines and thus allowing more voters to cast their votes before polls close. The software used was already tested in multiple trial runs in Akitsu done in the past. However, we understand if there are some reservations as to if the software was fine. Rest assured, if you looked at the hashes and checksums everything should match up. If you are concerned about why requests to plug in USB devices to confirm software on the machines were rejected, that is simply because plugging unkown USB devices into a computer is a bad idea. No country on the planet would allow someone to plug a USB device into an electronic voting machine, that would simply be fraud waiting to happen.

REALITY: This method of rigging would be literally impossible without electronic voting. The reason is that the software tells the voter that they voted for one vote, while in actually recording an entirely different vote. And if you're wondering about the hashes and checksums that observers would've been allowed to use to confirm the software on the machines, hashes and checksums can be faked.

How was the issue of alot of people not understanding traditional characters been resolved?

GOVERNMENT EXPLANATION: It was our judgement that the characters would not significantly impede the voting process. If you look at the names of the parties that appeared on the ballot, one would find that the simplified and traditional characters for most of the names are actually identical. The most notable difference comes from the character for "party", which in simplified form is 党 but in traditional form is 黨. While the fact that the differences are so little can be described as nothing more than a miraculous coincidence, it is for this reason that we judged that it would not significantly impact the voting results.

REALITY: As far as the government was concerned, if one couldn't read traditional characters they could fuck off. They think that traditional characters are "real Akitian writing", and thus will demand that everyone in Akitsu use traditional characters. This isn't aimed at any particular political view or minority, it's just a massive "fuck you" to the writing reforms done in the past, which they view as abandoning Akitian traditions.

What justifiable reason could you have for banning exit polls?

GOVERNMENT EXPLANATION: There are a number of reasons for this. Firstly, having polls be published can influence the results of an election. Secondly, these polls by their very nature are unscientific, and may not represent what the Akitian people really feel. Third, polls can be manipulated by the pollsers for the political gain of the one conducting the poll (or whomever hired them).

REALITY: Simple - any sort of exit poll would immediately reveal just how rigged the election is. The any group that does a secret poll would get figures something like the following:

Show ContentReal figures:

Restoration Party: 10%
Patriotic Party: 9%
Seiyu Party: 6%
Justice Party: 9%
Nationalist Party: 22%
Liberal Democratic Party: 24%
Democratic Party: 20%

NOTE: These figures are massively distorted by 2 things. First of all, the fact that more than half of eligible voters didn't participate due to the fact that they felt their vote was meaningless. These people would've been people who formerly supported either the Nationalist, Liberal Democratic, or Democratic Party. Secondly, some people are doing a form of strategic voting, voting for whom they think has the best chance of winning considering the coup happened. In other words - these real results don't represent the actual political view of the Akitian people, but is very much a result of the current political situation in Akitsu.