CSM Preliminary Voting Begins

CCP has taken some heat for doing little to promote the CSM8 elections, especially in light of the complicated new (two-round) voting system. The first round of voting, in which candidates need to receive 200 votes to appear on the final ballot, was scheduled to begin last Friday. However, technical difficulties delayed the voting until today. There are still reports of technical difficulties, with some browsers being unable to properly load the voting page (voting is not done via the EVE client). It's unclear at this point whether the preliminary voting period will be extended, given that half of the voting period was lost due to the technical problems.

The page where you can cast your vote for round one is found HERE. You'll need to log into the website, find your candidate, and click the "endorse" button--the page generates the list of candidates in a random order. After this round of voting is complete, the final ballot will be available at a later date. That's when the whole Single Transferable Vote thing comes in and you can rank up to 14 different candidates.

If this whole situation sounds needlessly complicated or "clustery", allow me to simplify:

I cast my preliminary vote for Psychotic Monk of The Skunkworks. If you click what I just linked, Psychotic Monk's employment history offers some hint of his extensive awoxing ("safari") career. He is also well-versed in the other methods of killing highsec carebears.

In April, on the final ballot, the voter's objective should be to select as many candidates as possible who will oppose the carebear theme park agenda. Psychotic Monk isn't the only candidate who fits that description, but for this preliminary round of voting, I recommend voting for him since he is not--to my knowledge--currently backed by a large nullsec bloc. Your support in this first round of voting could help ensure that he appears on the final ballot.