CSM8 Election Schedule and Election Process

CSM8 Elections – Schedule and Election Process

The time has come for a new Council of Stellar Management (CSM) term. "What is the CSM?|" you might ask. It is a democratically elected player council that both represents the community and is an advisory body to CCP that provides valuable information regarding changes and updates to EVE. You can read more about the CSM on EVElopedia.

The Council of Stellar Management elections are on the horizon, and we will be making some significant changes to the election process this year.

Our previous “likes” based candidacy system is gone and a new and improved Pre-election system will ensure that only serious candidates with significant support make it onto the final ballot. Candidates will submit applications and the ones that meet the election requirements will be entered into a Pre-Election Ballot. Every subscriber to EVE Online will then have a single vote per account to cast in support of a candidate. These votes will then be tallied and candidates that receives 200 or more votes will qualify to be added to the final election ballot. If less than 28 candidates meet this threshold, the next highest ranking candidates will be added until 28 candidates make the final ballot. We will also be releasing the results of this election for those looking to use it in their decision making for the final election.

The election proper is also using a new format this year. We will be moving to a Single Transferable Vote (STV) based voting system where instead of voting for a single candidate, each voter will pick their top 14 favorite candidates and rank them from 1 to 14.  Initially, each vote will be placed on the candidate listed as 1st, but if found unnecessary either because the candidate has more than enough to make the top 14 or if they cannot make top 14 under any circumstances, then the vote will transfer to the candidate listed 2nd.  This continues until the vote is exhausted or needed for a candidate to succeed.  The exact method used for calculating this vote distribution will be announced and released to the public for review before the start of the Election.

Additionally, this year the CSM chairman and summit attendees will no longer be solely decided by the number of votes the 14 CSMs receive in the election. Instead, the 14 victorious candidates will vote to choose all of their internal positions including chairman, vice-chairman, secretary, etc. The summit attendees will use a new 2+5 system, with CCP and the CSM working together to pick the 5 hardest working and most feature relevant CSMs being flown to each summit and the final 2 attendees will be the "most preferred" candidates, chosen by reentering the election results into an STV election to select the top 2 candidates. We feel that this system ensures that the CSM will have their hardest working CSMs at our summits in Iceland and that a person’s work as a CSM member is always more important than just gathering votes.

Finally, let’s talk about this year’s election schedule. Here it is:

-          21^st of February: announcing the CSM8 elections and the updated rules

-          12^th – 20^th of March: candidacy application period

-          22^nd – 29^th of March: Pre-Election

-          3^rd – 17^th of April: Announcement of final ballot and Election

-          27^th of April: Election result announcement

Here is a new copy of the much famed CSM White-Paper listing all these rules and more courtesy of CCP Xhagen.