Neat idea to boost voter turnout. The question is whether these votes are actually beneficial to the process.

Completely random votes or people who just go with the first candidates listed because they don't really care might just be adding noise or even distort the outcome unduly.

That is a good point.

Well the list should randomize so different people are at the top every time you load the page. However I do worry about people not doing any research at all and just picking whatever name looks familiar rather than actually knowing the person they're voting for.

Its kinda tough to say which is worse, not voting at all? Or voting and having no idea who you're really voting for?

Exactly, and I'd say both are inherently undesirable.

To motivate players not only to vote but to inform their voting decision, what I would like to see is a trimmed down vote match system built into the voting page. CCP, CPM and the engaged community select ten questions to be answered by each candidate in 200 words or less.

Upon log in, each voter is presented the list of questions and instead of answering them selects the three (or more, if he desires) that interest him/her the most. He/her is then presented the answers of each candidate and can mark the answers he agrees with.

In the next step the ten most fitting candidates are displayed and the voter can either chose to read up the other answers if needed or cast his/her seven votes on the spot.

This method would still be far from providing comprehensive insight into each candidate, but it should improve the quality of the votes dramatically.

With something like that in place, compensating voters for their efforts with officer gear seems fine. You'll still have people clicking through the process without a second thought but they at least had the chance to inform themselves without digging through the forums and 3rd party services.

heh, actually having to use votematch to vote sounds appropriate.

Voting should be it's own reward. I hate it when people ask something for nothing. If you want new officer weapons, go out an earn them.

Voting should be it's own reward. I hate it when people ask something for nothing. If you want new officer weapons, go out an earn them.