The Electorate News

[p]Hello! Welcome back to another dev log! Today, we’re covering ideology groups, and how they impact each election in a huge way.[/p][h2]How Voters Vote[/h2][p]In a general sense, voters vote based on the issues that matter to them. Whether it's about how the economy should be run, if they think AI should be more or less regulated, or whether healthcare is a human right, voters tend to pick candidates that most closely identify with their personal positions. Furthermore, these positions are informed by their ideology.[/p][p]In The Electorate, this dynamic is modeled through ideology groups, of which make an evaluation about who they want to vote for based on their position on issues, and their weighted importance of those issues.[/p][p]There are eight ideology groups and 10 key issues in any given election scenario. Today, we’ll discuss the 2024 scenario as our example, but these groups and issues will differ by year and are also customizable. [/p][h2]Ideology Groups[/h2][p]The Electorate utilizes eight ideology groups to determine vote shares to each candidate taking part in a race. In the 2024 scenario, the eight groups are:[/p]

• [p]Progressives[/p]
• [p]Social Democrats[/p]
• [p]Liberals[/p]
• [p]Moderates[/p]
• [p]Libertarians[/p]
• [p]Populists[/p]
• [p]Conservatives[/p]
• [p]Social Conservatives[/p]

[p]Now, get ready for some technical information, because the way these groups figure out who they want to vote for requires a somewhat calculated algorithm. [/p][p]The Electorate utilizes an algorithm called a “multinomial logit spatial voting model.” It simulates voter choice by positioning ideologies and candidates on a 1-9 scale across 10 issues, with each ideology assigning importance weights to those issues. The model does some math to find the distance of a candidate’s position relative to the ideology group, checks the weighted importance of those issues, and then determines a “utility value.” The utility is then used to find the probability of an ideology group voting for a particular candidate when weighed against the other candidates in an election.[/p][p]What this means is that there is an incredible amount of realism in how these ideologies select candidates. It also means that primaries are incredibly competitive, and while yes, does render some candidates as unelectable if they are too moderate for their party, it does also make them a particularly strong general election candidate if they happen to win the primary. If you pay attention to general election polls during primary season, the “moderates” of each party tend to poll very well in a one-on-one matchup with the opposing party, but tend to lag in their own party’s primaries. [/p][p]In the general election, the model is quite accurate as well. A matchup between Kamala Harris and Donald Trump in California weighed out to 59%-41%, which is only a few points off from the 58%-38% final tally in the actual election. If you add Bernie Sanders as a spoiler candidate running as an independent, Donald Trump actually wins California by a few points because Sanders wins 68% of the progressive bloc (California’s largest voter base), but splits the rest of the Democratic Party down the middle with Harris. [/p][p]However, as you might recall from a previous dev log, turnout is the actual mechanism for winning an election, and that’s no different here. While each ideology may have their voting preferences, that doesn’t mean they’ll actually show up to vote. Candidates must spend the rest of the election turning out voters, regardless of their ideology or party. Donald Trump only receives 0.02% of progressive voters at the start of the 2024 scenario, but with turnout, he may well receive 1% of their votes (although his efforts would be better spent elsewhere). [/p][p]Turnout also makes it possible to differentiate between independents and the major/minor parties. It would be very unlikely that Bernie Sanders, as an independent, would siphon off enough votes from Harris to deliver California to Trump. Therefore, independent candidates receive a major turnout disadvantage at the beginning of the game while the major parties start at a higher threshold. However, if you want to mix it up, you can easily adjust this setting prior to an election, making independents as competitive as you want. I’m still exploring ways to make independents more competitive organically, but as you might know, the nature of America’s two-party system makes this difficult. A random event might do the trick, though.[/p][p]One major point before we wrap up. Voters vote for candidates, not parties. The game is programmed around candidates “owning” their votes. This allows for cross-party voting, but most importantly, an abundance of candidates! At the moment, you can play an election with up to 10 candidates, with an aim for more at some point.[/p][h2]Status Update[/h2][p]To close, I figured I’d give you some insight into what I’m working on this week. [/p][p]Development is steady-going. Obviously, it takes time to get a lot of this stuff right and make sure it’s balanced and fun. A lot of the work lately has gone into refining and improving the campaign activities system by implementing more player choice and offering more control over how you run your campaign. Advertising, in particular, has been a pain to get right. It would be easy to just add a small modifier to turnout after running an ad and calling it a day, but that isn’t fun.[/p][p]I’ve also been working on optimization improvements. Originally, start times were quite extensive since I was loading data in a less optimal way. As the game’s scope has increased, I decided to tackle these issues now instead of later, and as a result, have reduced loading times significantly and improved memory usage to be more efficient. It pays to make these fixes now instead of rushing to get them done later, but it inevitably slows down development on gameplay features, so please bear with me on that.[/p][p]Pretty soon, I’m making some sizable changes to the campaign map. You’ll be able to see the names of key cities listed on the map, and candidate icons will be visible so that you know where your candidate is located, as well as your opponents. I’ll also be implementing map modes so that you can see population sizes, party registration, and ideologies.[/p][p]That’s all for today! As always feel free to join the Discord server to discuss the game, give suggestions, and help make the ultimate election simulator![/p][p]If you’re excited about the game, be sure to add it to your wishlist and hit the follow button.[/p][p]Thanks for tuning in![/p]

[p][/p][p][/p][p]Hey everyone! I've received a lot of questions from many of you over the past couple of months wondering about the inclusion of certain key features, a release date, whether the game will receive post-launch support, and more. So, to clear the air on some of these questions, I'm releasing the official roadmap for The Electorate, with plans going as far as 2027![/p][p]This is a broad stroke look at where the game is headed, but it should answer some of the most prominent questions I've received. Yes, primaries will be included. Yes, you will be able to customize the elections that you play, from randomizing populations to changing voting rules to editing ideology groups and more. You'll be able to see your previous elections and stats. And, at some point, even play Career Mode, where you'll choose a party and run candidates in persistent elections, where each election result impacts the next.[/p][p]But, as I've promised before, I want to include more than just the U.S. in The Electorate. From the roadmap, you can see that I've prioritized the inclusion of the United Kingdom, Germany, Italy, and France. Each of these nations will showcase their unique voting systems, ideologies, behaviors, and more, and I'll be proud to bring them to The Electorate. I'd also like to hear your thoughts on this lineup, and what other nations you'd like to see at some point. For example, Brazil's elections are in 2026, and that would be an intriguing project to do, but take priority over other items on this list.[/p][p]Meanwhile, I am exploring multiplayer support, but that is a project for another day in the distant future. For me, it's a "nice-to-have" but not a priority.[/p][p]Finally, as I said in the previous Dev Log, I expect to make The Electorate available by the first half of 2026![/p][p]Thank you for your support![/p]

[p]Welcome to the fourth dev log! I apologize for the two-week delay. I was on vacation during the first Tuesday, and then fell ill the moment I came home. Needless to say, development has been slow this month, but luckily, we’re entering October back in rhythm, barring any sort of October Surprises.[/p][p]Before we get into today’s dev log, I have a few announcements. First, these dev logs will be moving to a bi-weekly cadence going forward. While there’s a loyal base of readers, and I appreciate you all for the enthusiasm you have brought to The Electorate, I’m a little behind on development after the fiasco that’s been the last few weeks, and I need to prioritize that over these logs. They aren’t going away, so don’t worry, but they are going to be coming out every other Tuesday from now on. [/p][p]Second, The Electorate has new art![/p][p][/p][p]If you haven’t seen it already, here it is! I partnered with an artist who’s previously worked on projects like Victoria 3, and they did an absolutely fantastic job on bringing this to life. I wanted to showcase voters (an electorate, if you will), and avoid any sort of main character. No one in this image truly stands out, and that’s the point. Everyone has one vote, and that vote’s power is equal. [/p][p]Third, next Tuesday, I’ll be releasing the official roadmap for the game. This will be a simple list of features that will be included in the base game, as well as features that are planned for post-launch. There have been some questions swirling around about what’s included and what’s not included in the game, so I want to make good on those answers and finally get it out. I want you to also realize that our community is small but growing, and therefore, I will most definitely hear your voice if you have an opinion or request for a feature. I simply want to make the best election game possible. The only question that will remain unanswered by the roadmap is the release date, which I realize is what you care most about. I do not have a definitive date. At first, my goal was the end of the year, but as I’ve soft-launched the game for marketing and feedback, I’ve added some additional items to the roadmap that have extended the timeline. The Electorate will be available to play sooner than later, perhaps in early access, but the aim is currently Q1 2026. I do not expect it to take longer than that.[/p][p]With that out of the way, let’s talk about the polling system![/p][h2]Polls 101[/h2][p]My favorite thing about election season is the polling data. As Election Day draws near, I refresh RealClearPolitics repeatedly throughout the day to see the latest poll drops. I review crosstabs, add them to my own models, and determine which polls I think are accurate or not. [/p][p]When setting out to make The Electorate, the one system I knew I really needed to get right was the polling system. To me, it’s the bread and butter of the game, and I hope you enjoy it as much as I do. [/p][h3]Pollsters[/h3][p]Pollsters, at least lately, have struggled at times to get things right. 2016 was an infamous year for pollsters, where polls incorrectly predicted that Hillary Clinton would defeat Donald Trump, but also struggled to capture the right margins with Brexit, where most polls were showing a small but apparent victory for the remain side. [/p][p]In 2020, polls severely underestimated Donald Trump. But in 2024, they actually got things right. All of this to say that polls are weird, and even when averaged together, outliers have a decent shot at being correct from time to time. To model this variability in The Electorate, we’ve created 12 different pollsters who will be taking new polls every turn. Each pollster has different leanings and aptitudes, which are rated on a classic A-F grading scale.A-grade pollsters supposedly have solid accuracy, and you’ll see lower margin of errors (the percent difference of what the sample could actually be in a positive or negative direction) as a result. For example, if Gettysburg Group, one of the pollsters in the game, says Ron DeSantis has 48% nationally and the margin of error (MoE) for that poll is 2.8%, then Ron either has 50.8% or 45.2%. This is actually a very good MoE and is a reflection of the Gettysburg Group’s A-grade. However, you still might want to be cautious. Gettysburg Group, despite being accurate most of the time, does have a slight partisan lean to the right and might tend to favor Republicans a little too much. Luckily, you have 11 other polls to sift through that week, with some pollsters being left-leaning or others that are truly centrist but may have a slight issue with accuracy because they favor large online survey collections and, therefore, receive C-grades and have a higher MoE.[/p][h3]Polling Averages and “Fog of War”[/h3][p]All 12 pollsters have their polls aggregated for the week, delivering an average for each candidate. This creates two issues for your campaign. First, because this is an average, it’s impossible to know if you’re actually at the percentage the polling says you’re at. This is a concept we’re calling “fog of war,” which is a term you’ve probably seen in other games. Ultimately, fog of war in this case just means you’re operating somewhat blind.[/p][p]The second issue this presents is that you may not know where to focus your resources. Since polls are conducted both nationally and on the state level, there’s a lot of noise to sift through. [/p][p]For example, say you’re playing as Wes Moore, and you’ve decided to focus on boosting turnout in the Atlanta metro area. Polls in Georgia, only two weeks away from Election Day, are showing that you’re up 49.5% to Nikki Haley’s 47.2%. Georgia is a big state, so a 2% lead is many thousands of votes, but you have three polls that show you at 47%, and two polls showing you at 51%. The other seven have you around 48-49%. Do you trust that Georgia is locked up and move your dwindling money and resources into North Carolina? Or are those three polls enough to keep you in the state, but possibly make you less competitive elsewhere? These are decisions that real campaigns have to make, and it’s no different in The Electorate.[/p][p]I should also point out that the percentages you see when you select a county are, in fact, polls. However, they’re a little different than the national and public polls. There are over 3,000 counties, and running 12 different polls and then averaging each of them for the week would result in approximately 41,000 calculations every turn. While modern computers are great, this is a bog to the system on top of everything else the game does every turn, and is therefore being left out. [/p][p]However, that is not to say that counties are not getting polls. Whenever you select a county, a small calculation is immediately triggered and will fill the percentages with a poll set to a margin of error of 4%. It will then give you an estimated turnout number for the county so that you can get a better idea of the actual ground game. This, to me, is a compromise for the sake of accessibility. County polls are being called when needed, and a 4% MoE is wide enough for variability but close enough for helpfulness.[/p][p]It’s also important to note that your opponents will also be operating their campaigns based on these “fog of war” polls. The AI has no access to the actual math of the election and is just as uninformed as you are.[/p][h3]Private Polls[/h3][p]One way that we can make up for the lack of clarity around public polls is to hire our own pollster. There are a number of pollsters you can hire in The Electorate to help you make sense of what’s happening. You can take polls on the national and state levels. What you’re most looking for here is the margin of error. You’ll find that more expensive pollsters promise a lower margin of error. However, that doesn’t mean the MoE is guaranteed. Private polls are significantly more likely to be within their margin of error than not, but it isn’t impossible for them not to.[/p][p]Keep in mind that private polls are taken on the current state of the election, but are not delivered until the next turn, which means it’s technically old data. It may be more accurate than last week’s public polls, but a lot can change in one week.[/p][h2]What’s Next[/h2][p]That’s the basics of the polling system! I have plenty of ideas on how to expand this system, much of which is planned for post-launch, so be on the lookout for updates there.[/p][p]Like I said earlier, next week, expect to see the official roadmap for The Electorate, and be sure to check back in every other week for new dev logs![/p][p]Feel free to join our growing Discord server, and if you’re excited about the game, wishlist it on Steam and follow for more updates like this![/p]

[p]Welcome to Dev Log #3! Today’s discussion is all about candidate attributes. Last week, we covered the voting system and how votes are divided between candidates based on a number of factors, ranging from the difference between a county’s issue position and the candidate’s, to favorability and momentum.[/p][p]This week, we’re going to narrow the focus and spend more time talking about what candidates are made up of, how they are unique from one another, and how those differences can lead to different outcomes.[/p][h2]The Framework[/h2][p]The candidate system has been built to make characters feel and play distinct from one another. A campaign as Kamala Harris should feel and play differently than JD Vance. To do this, we include multiple layers of data that apply to each candidate, the first being attributes.[/p][h3]Attributes[/h3][p]Every candidate has a set of attributes scored on a scale of 1-10. The attributes are:[/p]

• [p]Charisma (Impacts the effectiveness of rallies and speeches)[/p]
• [p]Cunning (Impacts the effectiveness of advertising)[/p]
• [p]Experience (Impacts your ability to win endorsements)[/p]
• [p]Stamina (Impacts the number of actions you can take per turn)[/p]
• [p]Fundraising (Impacts how much money is raised through fundraisers)[/p]
• [p]Debating (Impacts the responses available to you during debates)[/p]

[p]There is a possibility that more attributes will be added as development continues. For example, Debating was formerly nested inside another data layer, but has since been elevated to become an attribute of its own.[/p][p]Attributes are the backbone of candidates. Each real-life candidate is scaled to reflect what their actual values should be, which does create “strong” and “weak” candidates. You’ll find that Barack Obama is a particularly strong candidate while Jeb Bush is, well…not. [/p][p]The good news is that you can edit attributes to your liking, and even create your own candidates entirely![/p][p]Some attributes can be improved throughout the campaign, too. For example, you can improve your candidate’s Debating skill through a skill tree, or random events can give you a temporary boost to your Stamina.[/p][p]Another factor that can change your attributes are traits.[/p][h3]Traits[/h3][p]Traits are used to differentiate between candidates. There are currently 32 planned traits for the game, with more to come as development continues. Traits can create incredibly powerful combinations that elevate your candidate in a big way, but traits can also negatively impact you.[/p][p]Traits can be broad, such as +2 boosts to an attribute, or very specific like a +15% increase to attack ad effectiveness during the final four turns of the campaign. Donald Trump is known for his rallies, so he receives the Big Crowds trait, which grants him a +3% boost to all rally sizes. This can make a meaningful difference in a long campaign, but also force you to approach your campaign strategy with those traits in mind. When your candidate has specific strengths, it's in your best interest to use them, as your opponent will be using their traits to their advantage.[/p][p]Candidate details screen of Donald Trump from an older build of the game.[/p][p]But, like I said, traits can be bad too. Some candidates who are prone to gaffes might have the Gaffe Machine trait, which increases the chance that a random event will fire after a speech or rally that hurts your campaign.[/p][h3]Media Spin[/h3][p]As mentioned in the previous dev log, Media Spin changes weekly based on the actions and events that occurred during the previous turn. Unlike attributes, it’s scored from 0-10 with decimal values, and is meant to represent the way the media is depicting you in any given week.[/p][p]Media Spin can amplify your campaign actions in either direction. Media Spin scores revolve around number five, which is neutral and gives no impact on campaign activities. Anything less is subtracted from five and results in a negative impact and anything more is added to five and generates a positive impact. [/p][p]For example, if your Media Spin is 3.85, you would receive a -1.15% modifier to all campaign activities that turn. Conversely, if you had an 8.43, you would receive a +3.43% boost to all campaign activities that week.[/p][p]Some candidates have tendencies to do better with the media than others, and that’s reflected in their traits. One of the strongest traits for improving Media Spin is Media Darling, which increases the spin scale from 0-10 to 4-10, reducing the margin for bad coverage.[/p][p]Candidates will have an opportunity to improve their Media Spin through special events like press interviews, town halls, decisions from random events, debates, speeches, and more. Media Spin is not impacted from rallies, ads, or fundraisers, unless a random event is triggered that results in negative coverage. This can be in the form of a gaffe at a rally, or something similar to Mitt Romney’s “47%” remark during a fundraiser.[/p][h2]What’s Next[/h2][p]This was a shorter dev log compared to last week’s behemoth, but I hope there was still enough information here to make you excited about what’s to come. [/p][p]Next week, there will not be a Tuesday dev log as I will be traveling, but we’ll pick up where we left off on September 23 with an overview of the issues system.[/p][p]Feel free to join our growing Discord server, and if you’re excited about the game, wishlist it on Steam and follow for more updates like this![/p]

[p]Welcome to the second dev log! Thank you for the positive reception from last week’s announcement! Today is all about votes, specifically, how the votes in the game are calculated and the systems that sway votes as your campaign goes along.[/p][p]Before we get into the mechanics of how votes change throughout a campaign, we first need to understand where the data is coming from and how it’s loaded into the game.[/p][h2]The Base Electorate[/h2][p]The base electorate is what makes up the initial vote tallies when the scenario you’ve selected begins. Ultimately, it’s one huge US Census database with some modifications to reflect recent voting trends. For example, the 2024 election works off of the latest Census data in combination with the final results of each county. It’s the same for other elections: the 2000 election works off 2000, 1996 works off 1996, and so on. The goal is to provide the most accurate experience possible, which is why we load in more than just party registration and population. [/p][p]In The Electorate, you’ll be able to see the population, registered voters, race, ethnicity, party registration, and the ideologies of each county. We’ve also determined whether a county is urban, suburban, or rural based on population size. For example, you’re more likely to see an urban county lopsidedly vote for a Democratic candidate, while the opposite is true for rural counties. We’ve also done the hard work of identifying the ideologies of counties. Los Angeles County, for example, gets the Progressive ideology, which gives bonuses to progressive candidates when campaigning there. In rural Pennsylvania, however, you’ll see Populist ideologies that vote heavily for candidates like Donald Trump, but perhaps less so for a more establishment-type Republican like Mitt Romney. [/p][p]When pulled together, you get a robust set of metrics to plan your strategy around.[/p][p]With all of this data, we can initialize the game by using an algorithm to set up the initial voting totals for each candidate. It starts by extracting demographic data from the database and saving them as variables for each county. Then, we multiply the registered voter totals by the party lean of each county, which is determined by a combination of party registration and recent voting trends. Once that’s finished, the votes from each county will be rolled up to create the proper vote totals for each state. Then, we’ll roll that up to the national level. Finally, we essentially cut these vote totals in half to reflect turnout, which is a core concept we’ll discuss in a moment. [/p][p]Every turn, the game will recalculate these totals based on the actions taken by both you and your opponents from the previous turn, giving you a living, breathing map with millions of votes to fight for.[/p][p]But how do votes change, you ask?[/p][h2]Turnout[/h2][p]At its core, an election is more about getting people to vote than it is convincing them that you’re the right candidate for the job. Party identification in the United States, and the world in most places, is as polarized as ever, and the number of people willing to switch sides has inched closer and closer to zero. If you look at the exit polls from the presidential election in 2024, only 5% of Republicans voted for Kamala Harris while 4% of Democrats voted for Donald Trump. Furthermore, 49% of Independents voted Harris while 46% voted Trump. So how did Trump win? By turning out his party. 35% of the electorate identified as Republicans, while just 31% identified as Democrats and 34% as Independents.[/p][p]Because of this, the game is built around the concept of turnout. Each party has a total number of potential voters in each county represented by their registered voter totals. Let’s say you have a county with 100,000 registered republicans, 100,000 registered democrats, and 100,000 registered independents. Instead of simply saying each candidate has 33%, we instead calculate the turnout for each party. Base turnout is about half of the total number of voters for that county at the start of the game, although this may change for balancing reasons as development continues. [/p][p]In our scenario, you’d now have 50,000 republicans turning out, 50,000 democrats turning out, and 50,000 independents turning out. But that’s still 33% for each candidate. That’s boring. Well, that’s why we layer on a number of other things. For example, there are 10 key issues in the game with varying levels of importance. We’ll get into more detail about issues later in the dev log, but just note that an initial calculation will divvy out the proper turnout numbers for each candidate given their position on an issue relative to the county’s position. With this, you may end up with 56,000 republicans, 49,000 democrats, and 50,000 independents turning out.[/p][p]But then what about independents? How do they get divided? Independents split based on a candidate’s issue position relative to the center and the ideology. Independents, in general, are considered centrists. Of course, some independents lean left or right, but in most competitive elections, they are neatly split anywhere from 45%-55% for either candidate. [/p][p]For the sake of keeping things clean, we take a candidate’s issue position and measure the difference from independents, which is set in the middle (5 is the center score). That is then multiplied by a value and scaled to not go over the total number of independent voters in a county. [/p][p]The logic here is that candidates who are closer to the extremes of their party are less likely to be supported by independents, which is typically true in most elections. For example, in the 2020 election, Joe Biden was considered more moderate than Donald Trump, which led to him winning independents 54%-41%. In cases where both candidates are seen as liberal or conservative, they cancel each other out, which is what you see in our 2024 scenario. Another factor that determines independent splits is the county’s ideology compared to the candidate’s, which may boost or decrease turnout.[/p][p]Once all of these initial turnout calculations are done, it’s up to you and your campaign to have the higher numbers come Election Day.[/p][h2]How Votes Change Indirectly[/h2][p]Generally, the main way you’ll increase your turnout or decrease your opponent’s is through campaign activities, but that’s a dev log for another day.[/p][p]Since the nature of this dev log is about the voting system’s underlying mechanics, I’ll spend the rest of it explaining the systems that change turnout indirectly.[/p][h3]Favorability[/h3][p]It’s been a while since Americans had a positive view of both candidates running for office. Take a look at this Gallup article to see for yourself. The takeaway here is that generally speaking, candidates with higher favorability ratings tend to win the election. The most glaring exception here is 2016, where Trump had a -11% rating compared to Clinton, but in all other elections, it was either a victory for the higher percentage or the favorabilities were so close that it pretty much didn’t matter. [/p][p]With that in mind, favorability is accounted for in The Electorate and does have an impact on overall vote totals. Favorability is calculated as the sum of the candidate’s attribute scores and divided by the favorability divisor (editable, but defaults at 52), giving you a baseline favorability. For example, Donald Trump’s baseline favorability in the current build of the game is 47.5%. [/p][p]Favorability doesn’t tend to swing much, which is why this system works well. However, favorability will still change throughout the game. Every candidate has a Media Spin attribute applied to them, which is considered inside this equation. Media Spin is the numerical representation of a candidate’s reputation with the media and is determined by the previous turn’s actions and events.[/p][p]For example, let’s say you start the game with a 2/10 media spin. Your favorability might be around 44%, which ultimately means that the media is depicting you in a bad light. To help your image, you can schedule a town hall event with a news station and put your campaign on the line in order to boost your ratings. If all goes well, you’ll receive a boost to your media spin, which will be reflected in the next turn’s favorability rating. A +2 boost would put you at 4/10, which might get your favorability up to 45.5%. [/p][p]That matters a lot, actually, because favorability has thresholds. Favorability ratings above 55% will give you a considerable boost to your campaign’s effectiveness. Rallies, speeches, ads, and other actions in the game all get an extra boost when you have high favorability. At 50-54.9%, you get a minor boost. At 45-49.9%, you get no boost. And at 44.9% and below, you receive negative effects.[/p][p]Favorability ratings are not strong enough to win or lose on alone, but they certainly matter in a close election. This also makes candidates with great attributes and media spin particularly strong, but also a great target for smear campaigns. [/p][h3]Enthusiasm[/h3][p]Enthusiasm represents how excited voters are about your campaign. We get a base enthusiasm score by taking the sum of the candidate’s attributes and multiplying by their current favorability rating. This means that your enthusiasm score is more of an arbitrary number, as you can easily end up with numbers like 36.1, 23.7, etc. This is your base enthusiasm, but each state will change as you campaign in them. For example, if your base score is 30 and you rally in Pennsylvania five times, your score for the state could reach 35. That doesn’t mean you can spam states with rallies, as there’s a diminishing return, but that’s the basic concept.[/p][p]What’s important is what enthusiasm actually impacts, which is Election Day turnout. If you followed the 2020 US presidential election, you’ll recall the emphasis Donald Trump placed on showing up to vote on Election Day as opposed to voting early. [/p][p]While the circumstances in 2020 were particularly unique, Election Day turnout for Republicans was extraordinarily high. For the game, we try to accurately model what that looks like, and the simplest answer is through enthusiasm. All in all, the people who are going to turnout and wait in long lines on Election Day are the ones most enthusiastic about your campaign, so your enthusiasm score converts into a modifier that impacts the number of voters you receive on Election Day itself. [/p][p]But you might be wondering what that means for the votes you see prior to Election Day. While the game gives you an estimated number of votes as polls, the reality is that these are just polls. We’ll cover the polling system in a later dev log, but just note that there are 10+ pollsters in the game who all have different “grades.” Those grades determine their overall accuracy on any given week. The polls are then averaged, and that becomes your headline polling average for the week.[/p][p]Depending on your enthusiasm score, your Election Day might look very different from what the polls say, for better or worse. The good news is that you’ll have tools available to you in the game to get an estimated number of voters accounted for through voter rolls, text message campaigns, and other check-ins during the early voting period.[/p][h3]Momentum[/h3][p]Momentum is meant to capture the national mood of your campaign. One of the key challenges in developing this game has been finding a good way to impact votes in counties you haven’t campaigned in. Since there’s over 3,100 counties, you cannot feasibly touch even 10% of them, and that wouldn’t make sense anyway. Momentum works to solve that by acting as an underlying modifier that impacts every county, every turn.[/p][p]Momentum, like enthusiasm, is an arbitrary number that changes based on what happened last turn. It is calculated by finding the sum of your media spin, your base enthusiasm, and favorability, and then subtracting 85 and multiplying the result by 0.5, giving you a momentum score.[/p][p]Let’s say your media spin in 6/10, base enthusiasm is 32, and favorability is 49.3%. The calculation would work as follows:[/p]

• [p]6 + 32 + 49.3 = 87.3[/p]
• [p]87.3 - 85 = 2.3[/p]
• [p]2.3
• .5 = 1.15[/p]

[p]Your score in this case is 1.15. If we divide it by 100 to get a decimal value of 0.0115 and multiply your current turnout in a county, you’ll get a raw voter count that we’ll add back to the total number of voters. For example, if you have 100,000 voters turning out in Seminole County, Florida, the equation would look like this:[/p]

• [p]100,000
• 0.0115 = 1,150[/p]
• [p]1,150 + 100,000 = 101,150[/p]

[p]Your new voter count is 101,150. It might seem like a lot when you do this for every county, but when you consider the fact that the US has over 170 million voters and Seminole County is a decently populated county, this is actually a modest gain. It should also be noted that momentum can be negative. Random events or narrative-driven content due to your campaign’s actions can result in an additional value that can add or reduce the initial equation. If a major scandal hit your campaign, you could have -10 taken from your initial momentum calculation, which could result in a score of 77.3. Here’s what those numbers look like when that happens.[/p]

• [p]77.3 - 85 = -7.7[/p]
• [p]-7.7
• .5 = -3.85[/p]
• [p]100,000
• -0.0385 = -3,850[/p]
• [p]100,000 - 3,850 = 96,150[/p]

[p]A scandal can be so bad that your polls could drop significantly overnight. An October Surprise in The Electorate can truly destroy a campaign. Luckily, events as harsh as a -10 modifier are rare, but they can happen at inopportune moments.[/p][h3]County Tags[/h3][p]As I mentioned previously, county tags like urban, suburban, and rural are in the game. However, there are actually dozens of different tags that are used to represent the demographics and special features of a county.\\[/p][p][/p][p]For example, counties with particularly large colleges will get a boost to democratic turnout. But tags don’t just impact turnout. As you can see in the image above, Los Angeles has the Hollywood tag, which gives a boost to democratic fundraising in the county. [/p][p]Urban tags help boost democratic turnout, suburban tags increase the issue importance scales so that candidates with issue positions closer to the center benefit from more independents turning to them. Rural tags help drive republican turnout. This does not mean that counties in any of these areas are unwinnable by the opposing candidate. Because of the Census data and recent voting trends, Donald Trump can easily win Miami-Dade County, despite being urban.[/p][p]Additionally, ideologies are considered county tags, and change the way votes move, or don’t move. These systems can get pretty lengthy to discuss, so we’ll leave the conversation about tags and modifiers for a later dev log.[/p][h3]Issues[/h3][p]We’re not going to cover the full issues system here, as that also deserves a dev log of its own, but I’ll give you the general concept here as they do impact vote totals at the start of the game and throughout.[/p][p]The political spectrum in The Electorate is represented on a scale of 1-9. 1 being very liberal, 9 being very conservative, and 5 being the center. There are 10 issues in each scenario, all ranked by an importance modifier from 0.1 to 1. For example, the top issue in the 2024 scenario is the economy. The economy’s importance modifier is 0.9, while housing, the lowest ranked, is at 0.3.[/p][p]Without getting into the weeds of the equation, which will be presented at a later date, the general idea is that the absolute delta between the candidate’s position and the county’s position on each issue is subtracted by 10 and multiplied by a modifier to create the raw voter count for each county to add at the start of the game. This means that Donald Trump will start with a completely different base electorate than Nikki Haley would, and so on.[/p][p][/p][p]And while I know there might be questions about why there’s only 10 issues, I’ll explain my reasoning with the context of this Pew Research article. Pew asked respondents about which of the 10 key issues identified in the 2024 election were most important to them. By the time you get to the bottom of the list, only 37% of respondents say that the issue is particularly important to them.[/p][p]In terms of this game, going further than 10 issues would be unnecessary and not have any notable impact on vote totals, given the already present reduction to the importance modifier after issues 7 and 8. Therefore, I decided to stick with 10 issues, and create a stronger gameplay loop around those instead of having multiple secondary issues that don’t have any significant impact on the final outcome.[/p][h2]What Comes Next[/h2][p]That concludes our overview of the voting system. There are a number of other factors that impact voting, but the rest of them are driven directly by campaign actions. We’ll touch on those in later logs.[/p][p]Once again, thank you for the kind support and engagement from last week’s launch. It’s been very rewarding to already see a community come together around The Electorate. If you haven’t already, feel free to join the Discord server to discuss the game, give suggestions, and help make the ultimate election simulator![/p][p]If you’re excited about the game, be sure to add it to your wishlist and hit the follow button.[/p][p]Be sure to come back next Tuesday when we go over the Candidates and their systems.[/p]