Insights: Unofficial 1896 Election Survey Results

Fallen London
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July 1896. Blythenhale stands in ruins in the wake of Feducci’s explosive exit from office. Reports indicate that the former Mayor has continued to engage in duels in the smoldering ruins of Blythenhale over the protests of the Dauntless Temperance Campaigner. Sinning Jenny could not be reached for comment. The former Mayor’s office has issued a statement that &quotthe Mayor has thoroughly and legally redesigned Blythenhale all year … this is merely his final touch to make it (purr)fect.&quot For more on this story, you may find an anonymous letter from the palace denouncing the harm committed to the cats of Blythenhale on page 3. In other news, the J-
[i]
&quotI’m afraid we’re going to have to delay that story to next week’s paper. Chief editor’s orders.&quot

&quotWhy? In just a few days, this will be old news.&quot

&quotIt was old news from the moment it happened. Feducci destroyed Blythenhale. Everyone in London knows. Port Carnelian knows by now. We have a new story. Someone finally sat down and processed all the polling data we collected.&quot

&quotBut most of that’s a week old! There are already [/i]post[i]-election surveys floating around. We can’t possibly -&quot

&quotHuffam’s not released the full results yet, so we have a window of opportunity here. Besides, have you seen the Square of Lofty Words recently? It’s a bloodbath, and a dataless bloodbath. Just get this out there.&quot[/i]


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Before continuing to read this post, if you haven’t already, I highly recommend filling out the entirely unofficial and voluntary post-election survey by Hotshot Blackburn. It covers some of the same ground as this post and hopefully between this, that, and the official 1896 Election Statistics, we can get a clear picture as to this community’s view of the election compared to the full Fallen London playerbase’s.

This post will be outlining some of the not-immediately-visible results of the unofficial election survey conducted at the beginning of the second week. A few disclaimers:

[ul][li][b]This survey was publicized on this forum and in the Fallen London subreddit. It is not meant to be reflective of the entire Fallen London playerbase. All conclusions drawn only extend to this subsection of the population.

[/b][/li][li][b]A majority of the data was collected in the first two days of the second week. Over 80% of the data was collected in the first three days. The form remained open up to approximately three hours after the announcement of the winner. For this reason, data on career level and Notability will not be considered in this processing.

[/b][/li][li][b]Some samples are very small. They are included for completeness but little else.

[/b][/li][li][b]No data was collected on responses to Huffam’s fourth or fifth poll questions because they had not yet been asked at the creation of the form.

[/b][/li][li]If a response was marked as N/A, then it was removed from the data set. data processing with those has been left as an exercise for the reader.[/li][/ul]
The poll concluded with 330 responses.

Table of Contents

I. Career Breakdown
II. Election 1895
III. Election 1894
IV. Huffam’s Polls - Temporarily still under construction

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[b]I. Career Breakdowns

[/b]These are fairly standard, and Failbetter will have official, more detailed statistics on careers. This exists as a reference resource for when the official statistics are released. Due to the absence of a social component to this festival, the differences in candidate career composition were not felt as strongly, but they may offer insights nonetheless.


Total Responses: 56

Total Responses: 81

Total Responses: 188

Like Feducci in 1895, the Jovial Contrarian had the greatest agitation at 21.8%. Agitators only made up 19% of Feducci’s 1895 campaign. In his 1894 campaign, the Jovial Contrarian was composed of 53% Campaigners, 32% Fixers, and 15% Agitators. Future comparisons with Failbetter’s official Election 1896 statistics are forthcoming.

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II. Election 1895
There are two parts to this section. The first is how each of this year’s candidate’s supporters are divided according to their support for an 1895 candidate. The second is how those who voted for each 1895 candidate voted this year. Note that 97 out of the 330 respondents, or 29.4%, did not participate in the Election of 1895.

The final vote in 1895 had Feducci (45%) win, followed by the Implacable Detective (33%) and the Dauntless Temperance Campaigner (21%). In comparison, a year later, the responses to the poll maintain the same order, with Feducci (40%) leading, followed by the Detective (35%) and the DTC (25%). The responses are, therefore, slightly biased towards both the Detective and the DTC, but the results are comparable.

Total Responses: 36

Note: This is only 11% of the total responses. It has highly limited predictive capability.

Total Responses: 61

The Captivating Princess’s vision of a more beautiful London clearly struck the hearts of many, including supporters of the Dauntless Temperance Campaigner (from the honey-well to the red honey dreams).

Total Responses: 136

The Jovial Contrarian drew nearly even support from all three 1895 candidates, though he is notably the only candidate to not draw a majority of support from Feducci.

However, these charts only offer one view. Next, we will chart the supporters of each candidate in the 1895 election by who they supported in this year’s election.

Total Responses: 54

Total Responses: 79

Total Responses: 88

Total Responses: 93

Non-participants form the plurality of responses, but the entirely unofficial post-election survey will hopefully offer more insight into the voting habits of these citizens.

It’s notable that among the responses, the Jovial Contrarian drew the plurality of responses in all four voting pools, commanding significant majorities of supporters from both the Implacable Detective and Dauntless Temperance Campaigner. Among responses, though, a plurality of Feducci supporters went for the Jovial Contrarian. Possible reasons include the Contrarian’s revolutionary allegiances aligning well with former Feducci supporters.

This data reflects the strong support commanded by the Jovial Contrarian among responders in the community, and it’s difficult to say whether it reflects the playerbase as a whole.

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III. Election 1894

This will follow the same principles as the previous post on the Election of 1895.

Out of the 330 responses, 145 responses (myself included) reported not participating in the Election of 1894, so most of the data will be more limited in scope. In the Election of 1894, Sinning Jenny (55%) won, followed by the Jovial Contrarian (35%) and the Bishop of Southwark (10%). Among the 185 responses reporting participation, the same order was followed with Sinning Jenny (57%) first, followed by the Jovial Contrarian (34%) and the Bishop of Southwark (9%). This quite closely reflects the actual results.

Total Responses: 24

(Note: This is a very small number of responses and predictive capability is very low.)

Total Responses: 51

Total Responses: 110

This year, the Jovial Contrarian managed to command support from each of his opponents in 1894, contributing to his success compared to his performance in previous years.

Total Responses: 16

(Note: This is the lowest number of responses of any criteria in this processing. Treat this data with a grain of salt.)

Total Responses: 59

The Jovial Contrarian was able to maintain most of his supporters from 1894, despite his apparent flip-flop to law, order, and jackbooted authoritarianism. It’s likely that after being in London for at least two years, his former supporters were able to see through the veneer and understand his revolutionary allegiances for what they are.

Total Responses: 97

Sinning Jenny supporters were the most evenly divided among responses, equally supporting her former opponent the Jovial Contrarian and this year’s femme fatale the Captivating Princess.

Total Responses: 142

Notably, Mr. Slowcake appears to have gathered the most support from these non-participants of 1894, though the Jovial Contrarian still takes the majority.

In the end, the Jovial Contrarian appears to have learned from his mistakes in 1894 and gathered support from all across the aisle in his 1896 campaign, attracting sizable followings from former supporters of both Sinning Jenny and the Bishop of Southwark. This broad appeal likely contributed to his electoral victory.
edited by Azothi on 7/6/2018

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And then there’s the guy who voted both Bishop and Slowcake