The voting closed up at the start of the week and CCP Swift once again got on Twitch yesterday to give us the result for the CSM20 Elections in EVE Online.

As the pattern now goes, there are ten candidates elected to the council, followed by two additional candidates picked from those who finished in 11th to 20th position to round out the body to an even dozen.  It is a system that gives CCP some leeway to pick points of view they feel the council may lack.

So this was the result of the election, your new CSM20 representatives.

CSM20 revealed

Here is the list of the winners, in the order they were elected as we went through the single transferable vote process, and a link to their forum campaign statement.

That result gives us seven out of twelve candidates from null sec alliances, including one picked by CCP, though Val Auroris was said to have expertise outside of bloc warfare that might be valuable.

There were also four incumbents re-elected and one picked by CCP as well as one returning CSM member, Angry Mustache.

For this election there were 55 people running for the 10 available seats, so there were 45 elimination rounds in order to come up with the winners.  CCP reported that there were a total of 49,870 ballots cast, up considerably from the 35,701 ballots cast for CSM19 last year, and the second highest total of ballots since CSM7, which saw 59,109 ballots cast.

According to the voting data put together by CCP, 7,794 accounts voted the Imperium ballot, which was enough to elect the top two candidates on that ballot, Zintage Enaka and hyperviper1, in the first round.

2,534 voted for the Pandemic Horde ballot, which put Machiavelien at the top, who met quota and was elected in round 29.

The Oz met quota and was elected in round 40, followed by Itaer in round 42, Angry Mustache and youngpuke2 in round 44, and the remainder of the ten elected round 45, the final round.

For those interested, this is the order of elimination by round.

1. “Sawdeth Ternius” with 82.000000 votes
2. “Aqustin Agustus” with 98.529799 votes
3. “Wheezy1442” with 136.000000 votes
4. “Coltitus Mando” with 143.021272 votes
5. “Nikita Luciano” with 158.755608 votes
6. “Kakala Asanari” with 165.552318 votes
7. “burtus antonioprimus” with 173.000000 votes
8. “Kane Carnifex” with 175.300521 votes
9. “Aries Wolfblade” with 178.601766 votes
10. “Frippyy” with 195.026055 votes
11. “ntrosell2” with 210.000000 votes
12. “Kaptin Tiberius” with 215.514725 votes
13. “Rose Allari Imahara” with 222.751456 votes
14. “CollegeKid” with 226.092446 votes
15. “Fluffy Neko” with 236.061637 votes
16. “Oncepure” with 245.319621 votes
17. “Teddy Shi” with 260.191586 votes
18. “NeoShocker” with 264.230640 votes
19. “ThePuce Moose” with 272.784191 votes
20. “ElenHellen” with 288.724955 votes
21. “MILINT ARC Trooper” with 315.541308 votes
22. “Ankh Lai” with 351.818972 votes
23. “Orion Sa-Solo” with 395.865339 votes
24. “Bexey Songweaver” with 403.957707 votes
25. “Theman JR” with 418.205761 votes
26. “Styxx” with 433.076303 votes
27. “yilifaerr” with 437.546720 votes
28. “Angel Maelstorm” with 455.403036 votes
29. “Jolange Jogua” with 483.731423 votes
30. “creatnos” with 491.054855 votes
31. “Janstina Urthadar” with 508.487148 votes
32. “Rots Mijnwerker” with 535.474383 votes
33. “Viola Terra” with 562.268273 votes
34. “Gideon Zendikar” with 613.646170 votes
35. “Sven Bauer” with 670.658617 votes
36. “Val Auroris” with 781.225440 votes
37. “Drake Iddon” with 973.763525 votes
38. “en guarde” with 1050.568250 votes
39. “Benzmann” with 1187.514519 votes
40. “Kenneth Feld” with 1244.550091 votes
41. “Limited Liability” with 1418.761783 votes
42. “Gustav Mannfred” with 1696.921450 votes
43. “Dujek Oneye” with 2266.506188 votes
44. “Mick Fightmaster” with 2522.468860 votes
45. “Mike Azariah” with 2848.669309 votes

The final quota to make it into the top ten was 4,168 votes, and passing on votes beyond quota from ballots made all the difference.  If somebody gets removed from the CSM… something that hasn’t happened for a while… Mike Azariah appears to be the first alternate.  We would be well served is such an eventuality came to pass.

Looking further into the data, 3,176 ballots were cast with just ONE candidate picked, with the top five one vote candidates being:

1. The Oz – 458 ballots
2. Mike Azariah – 295 ballots
3. youngpuke2 – 278 ballots
4. Gustav Mannfred – 210 ballots
5. Mick Fightmaster – 156 ballots

Aside from The Oz the rest of those votes expired when the candidate they were cast for was eliminated.  All 55 candidates got at least a few single name ballots, so a lot of votes just fell into the bit bucket and did not influence the final rounds.  I can picture a scenario where Mike Azariah is the number 2 pick on all of those and gets into the top ten.

So it goes.  People are going to vote they way they want.

Voting was up compared to last year, turnout being the highest in recent history, coming out ahead of the CSM18 election and only falling behind the CSM7 count of 59,109, which was the old, pre-STV process… and what might be considered EVE Online’s peak era.  The population has been down since then.

• CSM20 2025 – 49,870 total votes
• CSM19 2024 – 35,701 total votes
• CSM18 2023 – 47,155 total votes
• CSM17 2022 – 30,814 total votes
• CSM16 2021 – 38,086 total votes
• CSM15 2020 – 36,120 total votes
• CSM14 2019 – 32,994 total votes
• CSM13 2018 – 29,417 total votes
• CSM12 2017 – 31,274 total votes

I wasn’t really putting as much detail into my CSM posts before that.  Opinions, yes.  Details, no.

Thoughts on Results

Goonswarm gets out the votes again with 7,794 accounts voting the recommended ballot.  Organization matters.  Also, six of the ten people on the GSF ballot ended up being elected, though some, like The Oz and youngpuke2, clearly had their own constituency.

This is the part where somebody gets mad and claims that “Goons run the CSM” or some such nonsense.  There is, in fact, a history of CCP being pretty hostiles to GSF candidates.  That has gotten better in recent years, but the term limits thing was referred to as the “No Sions” rules.

The second position will be that null sec is over represented, having 7 of the 12 seats.  And it was certainly odd that CCP tapped someone from The Initiative as one of their picks, regardless of what expertise they bring to the table.

However, we do not really know the demographics of New Eden, save for the voter turn-out.  CCP at one point claimed that only 15% of players were in null sec, a number that turned out the be hilariously wrong as, when asked for examples, had null sec representatives on the CSM listed as primarily high sec players.

That said, null sec is likely over represented in the voting because its members are generally committed to organizations that get out the vote.  Your average solo high sec player likely doesn’t know or care about the CSM.  You can’t make people invested in these things.

One amusing side story around the election has to be Pandemic Horde.  While they had 48K accounts back October before the election kicked off, roughly 80% of the GSF count, they did not even get a third as many people voting their ballot.  Of course, the fact that leadership decided to evacuate from the Drone regions and left a bunch of their line members in the lurch, leading to the alliance bleeding players dropping from 48K in October to around 26K as I write this.

The one candidate they managed to elect, Machiavelian, is a member of Blackwater USA, a storied corporation in New Eden and one that is rumored to be looking for a home in a new alliance after the Drone regions fiasco.  So Pandemic Horde might end up not having a voice on the CSM at all.  And if BUSA joins Deepwater Hooligans, as the rumors suggest is the plan, Machiavelian will technically be a CSM member from low sec.

So null sec will have 6 out of 12 on the council, and only elected 5 out of 10.  Past history might make one think that was less well than null sec usually does, though there are the special circumstances above.

In the end, however, the CSM does not tell CCP what to do.  The best the CSM can manage most days is to moderate some of CCP’s worse ideas, and CCP has a history of bypassing them even on that front.  So it goes.  The new CSM will be seated soon and the cycle will continue.

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