Allow those running in a contestation to concede. If only one person remains, the contestation ends. This would seem intuitive and save much valued time.

I understand your reasoning, having seen some fairly pointless elections myself, but I'm afraid that such a system could be abused by someone who wanted to gain power more quickly (i.e., they find a friend to contest along with them, with the understanding that their friend will concede and end the election early).

It would work if the election still ran for the same amount of time, but you were allowed to bow out. Wouldn't save time, but it'd make it so that you could get out.

That would only work with an election for a vacant position, and you'd still have that period before an election opens for people to enter the election if they wanted. And if someone missed out, they can re-contest.

I think you can enter an election at any time, not just the period before the election opens.

That's right, you can.

I meant, given there some unscrupulous person who wanted to seize power, even if they did contest with a friend with the understanding the friend would concede, there's still that period before the election opens during which any other legitimate contender could enter.

In my experience, people are not interested in politics so much, and you're very likely to have an election with just the two candidates. Some will see two people in the election and feel relieved. "Ah, it looks like we have a choice between two good candidates already, so there's no need for me to contest after all!"

I keep trying to puzzle this out, but I'm not quite grasping how this would be abused in the manner described.

There is an office, and the incumbent. There is a contender, who contests the incumbent. Voting begins. One of them concedes, the other wins.

There is an office, and the incumbent. There are two or more contenders, who contest the incumbent. One concedes, but there is still more than one remaining option, so the voting continues.

In any case, the only time the voting ends prematurely is if there is only one option left.

The only possible abuse of this I can see is to rapidly get someone to a higher rank. Incumbent and contender, incumbent concedes. Former incumbent contends the new guy, new guy concedes. End result, original incumbent has his original office and the contender gets boosted to the rank just under maximum.

This example would need to be addressed. But in every other situation I can think of, there's no opportunity for abuse. Someone would have to give up their throne to allow someone else to take over. Or the contender would concede, and nothing has changed.

Bear in mind that it's late o'clock here, and I could easily be overlooking something. But if so, could someone explain in a different manner?

Two ways that I can see:

1. Incumbent makes agreement with new guy to appoint him as his successor. New guy contests, incumbent concedes, and the election is a sham. (No offense to the real Sham.)

2. Position is vacant, one guy wants to be in charge, he finds a friend who doesn't want to be in charge to contest him, and the rest of the guild/city/commune doesn't suspect that it's a setup, so they don't contest. The friend concedes, and the new guy takes power rather easily.

At any rate, I don't see the length of the elections as the real source of the problem you're trying to solve. I see the problem as the frequency of the elections, due to people leaving the organization or just being contested out of necessity or frustration. Fix the organization (if possible), and the problem is solved through player means rather than mechanics.

Ah, I see the problem.

The idea here (which I didn't get across, my fault) is that conceding couldn't take place until voting was opened. This would provide other contenders time to contest. I wasn't aware contenders could join in after voting opened, but that's also easily remedied by adding one day (IG month) to the initial phase.

In case 1, the incumbent is stepping down. If there was only one person contesting, then yes it's a sham, but we have that now. Eldanien and Doman just went through a sham election, since no one else was running and Doman was stepping down (so that Doman could be part of another sham election, strangely enough). It's happened on many occasions before, and will again. But since neither the incumbent or contender could concede until voting opened, this affords any others who wished to run the opportunity to do so. Bypassing the normal vote time isn't a problem, as the end result is obvious - or should be. If someone is giving up the job, voting for them instead of the new guy is rather pointless.

In case 2, where two contenders are required for a vacant spot, this is still justifiable. There is an opening. Someone needs to fill it. Only one person wants it. By default, they win. The time spent collecting votes when the second guy is telling everyone "don't vote for me" seems a waste. This still doesn't prevent other people from contesting. None of those in the running could concede until voting opened, thus allowing all potential contenders the opportunity to place their name in the lot.

I do prefer the idea of fixing the orgs rather than adding mechanics, but the game possesses mechanics for common and rare occurences both. In this case, the mechanic would address a much less common situation, but the impact a few days can make on a leadership transition is rather significant. Case 1 seems to be a common enough occurrence that a mechanics change to accomodate it may be appropriate, in light of leadership changes being a typical sign of organizational distress. Why exacerbate the problems an organization faces by making leadership change take three times longer than necessary?

T+5 hours for my usual sleep time. I'm gone for now. If this post didn't make sense, I'll come back later and give it another shot.

The suggested mechanics change would only further encourage sham elections, in my opinion, rather than discourage them. I've seen several elections where someone was just away for a few days, and when they enter to find a new election already started, they decide to join the election themselves. Your change would preclude that from happening, thus encouraging the shams.

You only need one person to contest for a vacant spot, actually. I did it for the position of Champion, since no one else wanted the position. (Honestly, I didn't want it, either, but I was the best candidate at the time.)

As much as this might initially seem to be a good solution, it ultimately just ends up leading to nepotism, corruption, and abuse unless the election still runs.