Prezident 21 Online Game

Report on the application of Janeček Method (D21)

Table of contents

List of Figures 3

Executive Summary 5

About the Institute H21 6

About the Janeček Method 7

General Context 9 Political System 9 Presidential Election System 12 2018 Presidential Election 14 Candidates 14 Mirek Topolánek 14 Michal Horáček 15 Pavel Fischer 15 Jiří Hynek 16 Petr Hannig 17 Vratislav Kulhánek 17 Miloš Zeman 18 Marek Hilšer 19 Jiří Drahoš 19 Pre-election Polls 20 Official Election Results 21 Prezident 21 Online Game 24 Main objectives 24 Implementation and Procedure 24 Data Collection and Processing 26 Population Sample 27 Prezident 21 Outcomes and Main Findings 28 Results 28 Voting Behaviour 30 Conclusion 40

References 42

List of Figures

Figure 1: Polling Numbers of Candidates by Czech Public Television

Figure 2: Polling Numbers of Candidates by Kdovyhrajevolby

Figure 3: Czech Presidential election 2018 Participants and Results - First round

Figure 4: Czech Presidential election 2018 Participants and Results - Second round

Figure 5: Official results of the Czech Presidential election 2018 Participants and

Results

Figure 6: Prezident 21 Online Game, Results of the Second Phase of Prezident 21

Figure 7: Prezident 21 Online Game, Distribution of Plus and Minus Votes under the

Janeček Method

Figure 8: Prezident 21 Online Game, Results under 3 plus votes

Figure 9: Prezident 21 Online Game, Vote Structure

Figure 10: Prezident 21 Online Game, Voting Pattern based on the preferred

Candidate

Figure 11: Prezident 21 Online Game, Vote Distribution based on Age

Figure 12: Prezident 21 Online Game, Voting behaviour based on the Level of

Education of Voters

Figure 13: Prezident 21 Online Game, Voting Pattern among Different Political Party

Supporters

Figure 14: Prezident 21 Online Game, Voting Pattern based on the Gender of voters

Figure 15: Prezident 21 Online Game, Vote Distribution based on the Age of Voters

Figure 16: Prezident 21 Online Game, Voting Distribution based on the Education

Level of Voters

Figure 17: Prezident 21 Online Game, Vote Distribution Based on the Size of voters’

Residence

Figure 18: Prezident 21 Online Game, Vote Distribution Based on the Salary Level of

Voters

Executive Summary

The Prezident 21 Online Game, (P21) ran between December 2016 and

January 2018. In this game, the public could vote for the 2018 presidential candidates in the Czech Republic on the interactive website via a real-time, online voting tool, using the Janeček Method (D21), a voting method developed by Dr.

Karel Janeček, a Czech mathematician and entrepreneur. Anyone who wished to participate could vote online, using up to three Plus votes and one Minus vote distributed across nine candidates. The P21 was executed and managed by the

Institute H21 (at the time of the project called Institute for Democracy 21), a

Prague-based non-profit organisation dedicated to enhancing civic participation through innovative solutions for public decision-making. Throughout the P21, the

IH21 team visited various towns and villages in the Czech Republic to mobilise and enable voters without Internet access to participate in the P21 by providing them with necessary electronic devices.

The unique features of the Janeček Method (D21) incorporated in the P21 produced a different result from that of the actual election. This report shows why, providing both a detailed explanation of the proposed alternative voting method and an in-depth analysis of the P21 results. It also describes the relevant Czech political background and the official election results.

About the Institute H21

The Institute H21 (IH21) is a non-profit organisation founded in 2016 by Dr.

Karel Janeček to boost civic engagement and to bring the Janeček Method (D21), to public attention in the Czech Republic and beyond. The Prague-based IH21 is comprised of a diverse team of social innovators who believe that changes in voting systems will help restore trust in democracy and lead to more positive, just societies.

During its first year, the IH21 began its research activities, led by a team of experts from around the globe. Since its inception, it conducted three large-scale studies applying the Janeček Method (D21) along with other voting methods in the 2018

Presidential and Senate elections in the Czech Republic.

The Institute offers practical and innovative solutions for public decision-making processes run by cities, governments, political parties and non-profit organisations through its online platform. Over 60 municipalities across different countries have adopted the Janeček Method (D21) in their budgeting procedures.

The Institute H21 has a partnership organisation in India, the Foundation for

Community Consensus (FCC), which applies the Janeček Method (D21) in urban planning and rural development projects in five states.

For more information visit the IH21 website: https://www.ih21.org/

For additional data on and results of the Prezident 21, please contact the IH21

([email protected] ).

About the Janeček Method

The Janeček Method (D21), is a single and multiple-winner voting system proposed by Dr. Karel Janeček, a Czech mathematician, entrepreneur and anti-corruption campaigner. Under the Janeček Method, each voter may express approval and disapproval toward each candidate by casting Plus and Minus votes.

Unlike other voting methods, the Janeček Method (D21) adds a new dimension to the non-ranked voting space by introducing two features that comprise requirement criteria for the method:

1. Systematically Capped Multiple Votes – this sets a ceiling for the total

number of votes each voter can cast on a single ballot;

2. A 2:1 Ratio of Plus to Minus Votes – this limits the number of Minus votes

allowed to no more than half of the number of Plus votes.

The Janeček Method (D21) permits voters to cast multiple votes that are either Plus or Minus in a single ballot. Since the Janeček Method (D21) can be applied in elections with single as well as multiple seats to be filled, voters are given at least twice as many Plus votes as there are seats to be filled. The upper boundary of votes is pegged to the number of ballot options. The method’s general definition proposes to limit the total number of votes to half of the number of options. Hence, the total number of allowed votes can fluctuate based on the number of candidates.

However, in practice, no more than 2(N+1) votes are recommended, where N represents the number of seats to be filled. This feature is defined as the systematically capped multiple votes requirements.

The Janeček Method (D21) also gives voters an option of expressing disapproval by casting Minus votes. However, the number of Minus votes cannot exceed half the number of Plus votes allowed. A voter is permitted to use a Minus vote only after casting at least double the number of Plus votes. The latter requirement is the second unique feature of the Janeček Method (D21)– the 2:1 ratio of Plus to Minus votes.

Under the definition of the Janeček Method (D21), all votes have the same absolute weight, count equally, and do not specify preferences between them. Votes cannot be accumulated. Only one vote, Plus or Minus, per candidate is permitted.

The candidate with the highest score is the winner.1

1 The score is counted based on the final number of the Plus votes deducts the final number of the

Minus votes.

General Context

The Czech Republic is a unitary parliamentary republic which has a population of approximately 10.6 million people and is located in Central Europe. The country in its current form came into existence after the dissolution of the Czechoslovak federation in 1993. In 1948, after a Soviet-backed communist coup, Czechoslovakia fell under a strict communist regime (Fawn, 2000). Even its own democratic reforms brought forward by the communist party leader Alexander Dubček were suppressed by the

1968 Warsaw Pact invasion; the USSR-led intervention completely prevented democratic changes in the country until communism’s fall in 1989. Since the first free elections after the fall of communism in 1990, the country has developed vigorous democratic institutions, a private sector and highly-developed market economy

(Fawn, 2000). Its democratic transformation was significantly stimulated by efforts to become a member of the so-called Western political structures.2

Political System

The Czech Republic has a democratic system of government based on parliamentary democracy, free competition among political parties and universal suffrage. According to the Constitution of the Czech Republic adopted in December

1992, every citizen, upon reaching the age of 18, has the right to vote (Constitutional

2 In 1999, the country successfully joined NATO followed by a membership in the European Union five years later.

Act No. 1/1993 Coll., Constitution of the Czech Republic, as amended - Czech

Constitution, 1993, as amended, art. 1 and 18)

The supreme legislative body is the Parliament, which consists of the Chamber of Deputies, the lower house of the legislature, and the Senate , the upper house. The Chamber of Deputies, based on proportional representation, is made up of 200 Deputies serving four-year terms who are elected on party tickets by secret ballot. The Senate is comprised of 81 senators elected in individual electoral districts for six-year terms using a majority-wins system; the elections are held under a two-round system with a run-off. Every two years a third of the Senate seats are up for reelection. Therefore, in each Senate election cycle, 27 constituencies hold elections. The first round of Senate elections is held concurrently with regional or local elections (Šedo, 2016). In order to be elected into the Chamber of Deputies, a candidate must be at least 21 years of age, whereas, for the Senate, the minimum required age is 40 (Czech Constitution, 1993, as amended, art. 19).

The President is the formal head of state. (see Czech Constitution, 1993, as amended, art. 54). Several significant powers are granted to the President in the

Constitution. The President is Commander-in-Chief of the armed forces, represents the state externally and negotiates and ratifies international treaties. He receives, accredits and recalls heads of diplomatic missions, calls elections to both chambers, commissions and promotes generals, may grant and award state honours, appoints judges, and has the right to issue amnesties. Nonetheless, decisions issued based on these powers require a countersignature of the Prime Minister or a member of the government. The Government is then made responsible for these countersigned decisions of the President. (see Czech Constitution, 1993, as amended, art. 63).

Furthermore, the President appoints and recalls the Prime Minister and other cabinet ministers based on the Prime Minister's recommendations and accepts their resignations. He may dissolve the Chamber of Deputies and has the right to return to

Parliament acts it has adopted3 (with the exception of constitutional acts). (Czech

Constitution, 1993, as amended, art. 62) The President also appoints members of the Banking Council of the Czech National Bank, Justices of the Constitutional Court

(with the Consent of the Senate) and the President and Vice-President of the

Supreme Auditing Office (based on the nomination of the Chamber of Deputies).

(Czech Constitution, 1993, as amended, art. 62, 84, 97)

The Government is the highest body of executive power. It is led by the Prime

Minister and is responsible to the Chamber of Deputies. Before it is instead, the

Government must win a vote of confidence in the Chamber of Deputies. (Czech

Constitution, 1993, as amended, art. 67 - 80)

The local administrative power has two layers: the basic territorial self-governing units are municipalities and higher territorial self-governing units are regions. Citizens directly elect their representatives into both, municipal and regional administrations (Czech Constitution, 1993, as amended, art. 99 - 105). There are 14 regions and 6,258 municipalities4.

The independent Constitutional Court is the highest judicial body in the Czech

Republic. The Constitutional Court is composed of fifteen Justices appointed for a term lasting ten years. (Czech Constitution, 1993, as amended, art. 83 - 89) The

3 Thus another vote has to be taken on the return act showing an absolute majority of all Deputies in favour.

4 Czech Statistical Office, 2017.

Czech National Bank, which is the state central bank, is entrusted with the stabilisation of the currency and operates as an independent and self-governing institution (Czech Constitution, 1993, as amended, art. 98).

Czech civic society is diverse and active. Human and civil rights are guaranteed by the Constitution through the Bill of Fundamental Rights and

Freedoms. Many organisations have been established to promote and protect human rights within the Czech Republic, including the Czech Helsinki

Committee and Amnesty International (Embassy of the Czech Republic in The

Hague, n. d.).

Presidential Election System

The election of the President is primarily regulated by the Constitution of the

Czech Republic and was substantially amended in 2012 by the constitutional amendment.5 Prior to 2012, the President had been indirectly elected by the

Parliament. Following the 2012 constitutional amendment, according to art. 56 of the

Constitution, the election of the President has to be held in the form of direct voting by citizens. He is being voted for a five-year term in a two-round system and can serve for a maximum of two consecutive terms. If no candidate receives more than

50% of valid votes cast in the first round, a second round is held two weeks later between the two leading candidates. The candidate who receives the greatest number of votes in the second round is elected. (Czech Constitution, 1993, as

5 The election of the president is additionally regulated by the Constitutional Act. No. 71/2012 Coll. which amends the Constitutional Act No. 1/1993 Coll., the Constitution of the Czech Republic as amended by subsequent constitutional acts - 2012 Law on Presidential Election.

12 amended, art. 56) The most recent presidential election, which took place in January

2018 and is subject of the P21, was the second direct election for this office. The winner and current President of the Czech Republic is Miloš Zeman.

2018 Presidential Election

Candidates

In 2018, the presidential election was held on January 12th-13th and

26th-27th. The Ministry of Interior approved and registered nine candidates. In order to qualify for the ballot, potential candidates had to either gather 50,000 signatures from eligible voters or receive support from at least twenty Deputies or ten Senators.

After candidates filed their applications, the Ministry of Interior verified a sample of the signatures from their application form. After the registration process, presidential candidates were assigned a number on the election ballot by the Ministry of Interior.

For the 2018 election, nineteen participants submitted their applications. However, only nine of them met the Ministry's requirements for eligibility and thus became official candidates. The list of candidates, alongside their short biographies, is provided below, arranged by their official registration number.

Mirek Topolánek

Mirek Topolánek (born in 1956) is a Czech politician and businessman, who served as Prime Minister of the Czech Republic from 2006 to 2009, while being the leader of the Civic Democratic Party (ODS) from November 2002 to April 2010. He was an MP from 2006 to 2009 and a Senator for Ostrava from 1996 to 2004. On 24

March 2009, Topolánek resigned as the Prime Minister after losing a no-confidence motion in the Chamber of Deputies. He remained in office until May, when Jan

Fischer took over his office as an independent. After leaving politics in 2010,

Topolánek has been active in the energy industry and is a co-founder of VAE and

VAE Controls Group. In November 2017, Topolánek announced his bid for the presidency in the 2018 election. He was nominated by Senators and ran as an independent. After losing in the first round, he then supported candidate Jiří Drahoš.6

Michal Horáček

Michal Horáček (born in 1952) is a Czech entrepreneur, lyricist, music producer, poet, writer, journalist and social anthropologist, earning a PhD. from

Charles University in Prague in 2011. He is also one of the founders of

Czechoslovakia's first bookmaking firm Fortuna. He ran in the 2018 presidential election as an independent candidate, after collecting 86,940 signatures from the public. After losing in the first round obtaining 9.81% of total votes, he decided to heavily endorse candidate Jiří Drahoš heavily.7

Pavel Fischer

Pavel Fischer (born in 1965) is a Czech diplomat and politician. During Václav

Havel's presidency, Fischer worked at the Office of the President of the Czech

Republic as the Deputy Press Secretary and later as the Head of the Department of

Politics. He served as Czech Ambassador to France and Monaco from 2003 to 2010.

After 2010, he worked as the Chief Security Officer of the Security and Multilateral

Section at the Czech Ministry of Foreign Affairs. There, among other things, he was involved in cyber-security issues and later as a strategic and security consultant for

6 iRozhlas, 2018a.

7 iRozhlas, 2018b.

15 both the government and non-government agencies. From 2015 until October 2017,

8 he was the Director of the Institute of Empirical Research STEM. As an experienced diplomat, he is considered an expert in domestic and foreign policy, while specialising in strategy and security issues. He ran as an independent candidate in the 2018 Czech presidential election and finished third in the first round, with 10.23% of the votes in the first round. Afterwards, he has decided to endorse Jiří Drahoš.9

Jiří Hynek

Jiří Hynek (born in 1960) is a Czech politician and a business executive and

Chairman of the Association for Weapons and Defence Industry of the Czech

Republic. Hynek studied at the Faculty of Mathematics and Physics at the Charles

University in Prague in the 1980s. After his studies, he worked for a number of

Czech companies before becoming a business executive. Since 1992 he has held a number of prominent executive positions, including CEO of Carlsbad Porcelain, as well as Chairman of the Board of Directors and CEO of car manufacturer Praga. In

2011, he became the new Chairman of the Association for Weapons and Defence

Industry of the Czech Republic. As the Leader of the Realists, Hynek was the party's candidate in the 2018 presidential election, finishing sixth with a 1.23% share of votes. After sending the two remaining candidates a question, he decided to endorse Miloš Zeman in the second round.10

8 STEM is an independent non-profit research institute which consults civic institutions. More information available at https://www.stem.cz/historie-stem/

9 Česká televize, 2018b.

10 ČTK, 2018.

Petr Hannig

Petr Hannig (born in 1946) is a Czech singer, producer, politician and leader of the Common Sense Party (Rozumni). Between 1968 and 1969, he worked with

Dusty Springfield, Tom Springfield (New Seekers) and other famous artists. He was highly praised for his ability to produce classical music, rock and pop, as well as a soloist. For many years he worked as an editor on Czechoslovak Radio. In recent years, he has been focusing on politics and founded the Common Sense Party

(Rozumní). In July 2017, he announced his candidacy for the presidency of the

Czech Republic in the 2018 election. Hannig finished eighth in the first round with

0.56% of the votes. Afterwards, he endorsed Miloš Zeman in the second round.11

Vratislav Kulhánek

Vratislav Kulhánek (born in 1943) is a Czech business executive and former

Chairman of the Czech Ice Hockey Association. He studied at the University of

Economics, Prague and the European Business School. He later worked in a variety of companies. In 1992 he became the Chairman of Robert Bosch in České

Budějovice. He worked at Škoda Auto from 1997 to 2007. He later started working for Kooperativa Forbundet. He announced his candidacy for the Czech 2018 presidential election in June 2017, as the candidate of the Civic Democratic Alliance

(ODA), which collected for him the signatures he needed to run for the office and also financially supported his campaign. Kulhánek finished last of the nine

11 iRozhlas, 2018a.

17 candidates, with 0.47% of the votes. Kulhánek endorsed Jiří Drahoš in the second round.12

Miloš Zeman

Miloš Zeman (born in 1944) is a Czech politician serving as the current President of the Czech Republic since 8 March 2013. He previously served as the Prime Minister of the Czech Republic from 1998 to 2002. As the Leader of the Czech Social Democratic Party during the 1990s, he transformed his party into one of the country's major political forces. Zeman was the Speaker of the Chamber of Deputies, the lower house of the Czech parliament, from 1996 until he became

Prime Minister two years later in 1998.

In December 2009, he established a new political party, the Party of Civic

Rights (SPOZ), and was elected as its leader in March 2010. In the general elections of 2010, the party received 4.3% of the votes. Having failed to fulfil his goal to exceed the 5% threshold for entering the Parliament, he resigned as the leader of the party. In November 2010, the party elected him as its honorary chairman. In June

2012, he became the first presidential candidates to collect 50,000 signatures that are required for a nomination for President of the Czech Republic. In January 2013,

Zeman was elected President of the Czech Republic. He is the first directly elected

President in Czech history; both of his predecessors, Václav Havel and Václav

Klaus, were elected by the Czech Parliament. In 2018 he ran for the presidency with the support of the Czech Social Democratic Party and was re-elected for a second term with 38.56% of the votes in the first round and 51.36% in the second round.

12 Česká televize, 2018b.

Marek Hilšer

Marek Hilšer (born in 1976) is a doctor, Czech political activist and university lecturer. He moved to the United States and Australia in 1999. There, he briefly worked in manual jobs, before returning to the Czech Republic. He then embarked on medical studies, becoming a teaching member and a researcher at the First

Faculty of Medicine at Charles University in Prague. He earned his Ph.D. in 2016. In

July 2016, he announced his run in the 2018 presidential election as an independent.

He finished fifth with 8.83% of the votes. He decided to support Jiří Drahoš later on.13

Jiří Drahoš

Jiří Drahoš (born in 1949) is a Czech scientist and politician who served as the President of the Czech Academy of Sciences from 2009 to 2017. Drahoš studied physical chemistry at the University of Chemistry and Technology in Prague and then joined the Institute of Chemical Process Fundamentals of the Czechoslovak

Academy of Sciences in 1973, which he later led from 1995 to 2003. He defended his dissertation thesis in 1976 and moved to the position of a scientist at the

Chemical Reactors Department. In 1985, at the time of Gorbachev's perestroika , he spent a year in Germany as a scholar of the Humboldt Foundation. He served as the

President of the Czech Academy of Sciences from 2009 to 2017. In 2012, he was awarded the Medal of Merit for the State of Science. He is a co-author of a number of patents, including recycling PET bottles or drying paper and has published more than 70 papers in international academic journals. For four years, he has been the

13 Česká televize, 2018b.

President of the European Federation of Chemical Engineering. He ran as an independent, receiving 26.60% of the votes in the first round and 48.63% in the second round, losing to Zeman.

Pre-election Polls

Several nation-wide pre-election opinion polls, conducted in early January

2018, yielded consistent outcomes with Miloš Zeman leading the field. Polls conducted by Median and Kantar for Czech Public Television, presented in Figure 1, showed that the two candidates capturing the majority of voters’ preferences were

Zeman and Drahoš, with Zeman leading by 15 percentage-point in early January, and by 9.5 percentage-point closer to the election days. Median and Kantar polls showed Zeman had a clear lead over Jiří Drahoš until the election days approached when the gap closed significantly.

Figure 1: Polling Numbers of Candidates by Czech Public Television

Source: IH21 according to Median and Kantar polls for Czech Public Television (Česká televize, 2018a)

However, according to an earlier election forecast from Kdovyhrajevolby.cz in

December 2017, the race between Zeman and Drahoš was much tighter (with an

20 average difference of 1.1 percentage-point), with Drahoš leading on December 17th

14 and 19th.

Figure 2: Polling Numbers of Candidates by Kdovyhrajevolby

Source: IH21 according to Kdyvyhrajevolby.cz

The election outcomes, later on, reflected the results of the pre-election polls, which will be discussed in the following section.

Official Election Results

Presidential elections were held in the Czech Republic in January 2018. The first round took place on January 12 and 13. As Figure 3 shows, Miloš Zeman has received 1,985,547 (38.56%) votes, whereas Jiří Drahoš gained 1,369,601 (26.60%) of the votes (Czech Statistical Office, 2018). As a result, both candidates progressed into the second round of this election as no one was able to gain an absolute majority.

A run-off election between the top two candidates, Jiří Drahoš and Miloš

Zeman, was held on January 26 and 27. In the second round, Zeman received

14 Kdovyhrajevolby.cz’s forecasting model is based on connecting information from public opinion polls and bookmakers’ forecasts and calculating the most probable outcome. The model is based on the predictive model of Nate Silver and David Rothschild. (Kreč, 2017)

51.36% (2,853,390 votes), whereas Drahoš received 48.63% (2, 701,206 votes).

The overall election turnout was 66.6% (Czech Statistical Office, 2018).

Figure 3: Czech Presidential election 2018 Participants and Results - 1st round

Source: IH21 according to Czech Statistical Office, 2018.

Figure 4: Official results of the Czech Presidential election 2018 Participants and

Results - 1st round

Source: IH21

Figure 5: Czech Presidential election 2018 Participants and Results - 2nd round

Source: IH21 according to Czech Statistical Office, 2018.

Prezident 21 Online Game

Main objectives

The primary goal of the Prezident 21 Online Game (P21) was to enhance the general public's knowledge about the Janeček Method (D21) and to apply and test it in pseudo-elections held at the same time as official presidential elections. The secondary goal was to raise general public awareness about the importance of voting as well as about the presidential election and voters’ knowledge of candidates and to stimulate general public interest in alternative vs. conventional voting methods and their impact on voting behaviour, presidential campaigning and election results.

Implementation and Procedure

The P21 was launched on December 21, 2016, and was implemented in two phases. The first phase finished on November 24, 2017, when the Ministry of the

Interior of the Czech Republic announced the official nine presidential candidates.15

During the first phase, the game participants were asked to nominate presidential candidates of their choice, provided that they met the Czech legal requirements for

16 candidacy.

15 The Ministry of Interior approves for presidential candidates only those candidates who have either verified signatures of 50 thousands Czech citizens or support of 20 members of parliament or 10 senators.

16 T o be eligible a person must be at least 40 years old by the second day of the election. He or she must have the competence to act on their legal rights. They also have to be a Czech citizen and cannot be elected for more than 2 consecutive terms. (Czech Const., art. 57 and 19)

In the second phase, which ran from November 24, 2017 to January 13, 2018, the game evolved into a real-time, pseudo-election running in parallel to the actual one. At this stage, the participants were asked to vote online using the Janeček

Method (D21) for nine official candidates who were left in the game as they were approved by the Ministry of Interior. Counters of votes were reset after the first phase, and people could cast their votes only between this “final nine”. They could cast up to four votes: three Plus and one Minus. Though the game allowed participants to express their disapproval for a particular candidate by exercising the option of a Minus vote, they had to comply with the Janeček method requirement

17 that conditions this option upon the use of at least two Plus votes. The second phase of the game ended on the same day as the first round of official elections when the announcement of two candidates proceeding to the second round was made. Nonetheless, the result of the P21 could not be published before the official announcement of the second round winner.

The online game promotion aimed at increasing participation took place through various channels, i.e. displaying ads, social media (Facebook), newspapers and magazines and contact campaigns in the Czech towns and regions. The participation in the game was allowed only after SMS verification of the Czech phone number. The goal of this security step was to reduce false and multivoting, none other entering requirements were applied. Accessing the game was not conditioned by any quotas thus allowing even to participants younger than 18 y.o. to vote in case they provided a Czech phone number. Important condition was that people could cast their votes and change them afterwards during both phases. The reason behind

17 For the voting method requirements refer to the section A bout Janeček Method (D21). 25 this option was to enable a participant to continue in the online game even though his/her candidate quit the presidential campaign for not receiving enough support.

The voting platform Decision 21 was also augmented by a set of communication channels, which facilitated direct interaction between the electorate and eight running candidates.18

Data Collection and Processing

Data was collected via an interactive website which was a custom-built online solution dedicated only to the P21. Complete results were visible to the users only after casting at least one of their positive votes. Top and bottom of the rankings were also regularly presented in the media. The fact that it was generally known who is leading and who is last in the game could have influenced who participated in the game and also how users voted to some extent. Admittedly, the fact that voter’s preferred candidate was clearly last in the game with a significant gap between him and other candidates could have a discouraging psychological effect on the further voter's participation for the reason that such vote would not have changed much.

The website was designed to collect demographic data on the participants in the P21 on a voluntary and discretionary basis.19

18 Zeman did not participate in P21.

19 Number of participants replying to each of demographic questions: 1. N=55 752 (age), 2. N=52 427

(level of education), 3. N=57 042 (size of municipality), 4. N=51 185 (salary).

Population Sample

Online game results are not representative of the official results mainly due to heavy under-representation of Miloš Zeman who won the second round of real election over Jiří Drahoš. Under-representation of Miloš Zeman voters is a result of multiple factors such as the voluntary basis of the game, disinterest of some voters in participating in the game and the on-line environment where certain social groups are more present than others.

As stated before, the P21 first vote results are more of an indication of users’ first preferences. Therefore, weighting the game results would have probably just multiplied the bias of this sample’s voting behaviour. Weighting would be more suitable in order to generalise the results of the game to the population.

Nevertheless, as this was an online environment where people behave very differently from real elections and access could not be restricted only to eligible voters, a direct comparison would not have been precise.20

Users were allowed to tick their most preferred candidate. However, only 10% used this function (16,407 out of 164,869 participants). 12,542 out of 16,407 (76.4%) assigned their first preference to the candidate in the first window so it might be concluded that it is probably true for the majority of users that they used first window as first preference but it is not guaranteed for each user.

20 Each candidate besides Miloš Zeman is overrepresented in this sample. His voters should be more than doubled to get close to the real results. On the other side, Kulhánek voters should be divided by almost three and Hannig and Hynek by almost two as they are most over-represented candidates.

Different bias of this sample was documented in the question on the party users voted for in the last

2017 Parliament elections. 24,934 users (15.1% of the sample) responded to this question.

Prezident 21 Outcomes and Main Findings

Results

The outcome of the P21 online game election under the Janeček Method yielded significantly different results than the official election outcomes of the first round presented in Figure 3 and 4. The Janeček Method’s unique features of systematically capped multiple votes and 2:1 Plus to Minus votes requirements21 had an apparent impact on the outcome of the P21 depicted in Figure 6.

Figure 6: Prezident 21 Online Game, Results of the Second Phase of Prezident 21

Source: IH21

While Miloš Zeman won the official election, he actually came last in the P21 due to receiving a large number of Minus votes and a limited number of additional

Plus votes from other candidates’ supporters. In fact, Zeman was the only candidate

21 In order to exercise the option of a Minus vote, a voter has to use at least two Plus votes. Up to three votes were given up to Participants in the P21.

28 to receive a higher number of Minus than Plus votes, which placed him in a net minus position, as shown in Figure 6.

Jiří Drahoš, on the other hand, was the winner in P21 largely due to overwhelming support not only from his original base but also from those of the other candidates. The latter tendency also explains the finishing positions of Marek Hilšer,

Pavel Fischer, and Michal Horáček, who received the greater percentage of the second and third votes from supporters of other candidates than the percentages of their actual supporters’ votes, or “first votes” as shown in Figure 7.

Figure 7: Prezident 21 Online Game, Distribution of Plus and Minus Votes under the

Janeček Method

Source: IH21

It is important to point out that if only Plus votes are counted without the Minus votes, Zeman would not have won in the P21 and would have finished only 5th, as

Figure 8 demonstrates. Significant support received through second and third votes helps to reveal contenders who are perceived as consensual candidates.

Figure 8: Prezident 21 Online Game, Results under 3 plus votes

Source: IH21

Voting Behaviour

Figure 9 illustrations unique tendencies in voters’ behaviour under the

Janeček Method (D21):

- Though participants were given a total of three Plus votes, only 42.6% of them

cast all three votes.

- The smallest percentage, 17.6%, of the game partakers used two Plus votes,

while 39.9% used only one Plus vote. It is important to note that 33.5% of

those who cast only one vote were Miloš Zeman supporters. The majority of

Zeman supporters did not cast additional votes.

- On average, 2.03 out of 3 possible Plus votes were cast in P21.

- Despite some arguments that a Minus vote will result in retaliatory voter

behaviour who would automatically indicate a disapproval for candidates from

an opposite ideological camp, a mere 56.7% of respondents cast a Minus

vote, though 60.1% could potentially exercise this option.

- Less than half of the sample, 41.4%, used all votes, three Plus and one

Minus.

Figure 9: Prezident 21 Online Game, Vote Structure

Source: IH21

Figure 10: Prezident 21 Online Game, Voting Pattern based on the preferred

Candidate

Source: IH21

The distribution of the votes was influenced mainly by the choice of the most preferred candidate, as shown in Figure 10. The number of received votes and the ratio of positive to negative votes varied among different candidates’ supporters. For example, as was mentioned earlier, supporters of Miloš Zeman tended to cast fewer votes; typically using only one Plus vote. This tendency was uniquely utilised by

Zeman’s supporters.

With regards to voter demographics, while voters’ age did not have a significant impact on voting behaviour and the result, some tendencies in voter preferences may be observed among different age groups. As Figure 11 demonstrates,

18-42-year-old individuals more often than others used all their votes (three Plus and one Minus), whereas 61+ voters used one Plus vote more often than other age groups. In general, senior voters cast fewer votes than younger ones.

Figure 11: Prezident 21 Online Game, Vote Distribution based on Age

Source: IH21

Furthermore, the P21 results show the relationship between the voters’ level of education and the number of votes cast. As Figure 12 suggests, voters without a

22 secondary education diploma identified only one preference more often than college graduates who used all four votes more frequently. There is a clear pattern of voters with a higher level of education casting more votes.

22 A Czech equivalent is M aturita.

Figure 12: Prezident 21 Online Game, Voting behaviour based on the Level of

Education of Voters

Source: IH21

The game results also demonstrate variations in voting behaviour in regards to the total number of votes cast among different political parties’ supporters, as shown in

Figure 13.

Figure 13: Prezident 21 Online Game, Voting Pattern among Different Political Party

Supporters

Source: IH21

Voters of TOP 09, STAN, KDU-ČSL, Piráti and Zelení used on average more than three votes, while SPD and KSČM supporters used on average the least number of votes.

Figure 14: Prezident 21 Online Game, Voting Pattern based on the Gender of voters

Source: IH21

When examining variations in voting preferences for different gender, Figure

14 illustrates that the only candidate who received more support from the female than male voters was Hilšer. All other candidates, including Zeman, received more votes from male participants, who also collected more minus votes from male rather than female voters.

Figure 15 depicts the distribution of votes for each candidate according to the age groups. Drahoš and Hilšer received more support from younger voters, who, on the other hand, predominantly voted Minus for Zeman. Hannig was the only candidate whose largest voter group were older (over 60-years old) individuals.

Figure 15: Prezident 21 Online Game, Vote Distribution based on the Age of Voters

Source: IH21

The results indicate that voters’ preferences varied according to their level of education. In Figure 16, it can be noticed that Drahoš’ largest share of voters had higher education. This was the group that cast most of their Minus votes for Zeman.

Both Fischer’s and Horáček’s biggest supporter group were also voters with higher

36 education, whereas Hilšer’s and Topolánek’s supporters were the least educated participants.

Figure 16: Prezident 21 Online Game, Voting Distribution based on the Education

Level of Voters

Source: IH21

It is clear from Figure 17 that residents of large cities (population over 100,000) disapproved of Zeman’s candidacy. This group of voters predominantly voted for

Drahoš. Hynek, Kulhánek and Hannig also received little support from large city voters.

Figure 17: Prezident 21 Online Game, Vote Distribution Based on the Size of voters’

Residence

Source: IH21

Finally, the game results indicate that variations in voter preference in accordance with their income level. For example, the largest share of Drahoš’ voters were high-income individuals, while lower-income voters comprised the biggest proportion of Hilšer’s supporters. The results also demonstrate that high-income voters disapproved Zeman as they comprised the largest group who cast the Minus vote for him. The variations in the candidates’ base according to the participants’ income levels are depicted in Figure 18.

Figure 18: Prezident 21 Online Game, Vote Distribution Based on the Salary Level of

Voters

Source: IH21

Conclusion

The P21 had two main objectives: firstly, to enhance the general public's knowledge about the Janeček Method (D21) and to apply and test this voting method; secondly, to raise general public awareness about the importance of participation and voting in the presidential election itself. It may be concluded that both goals were to a large extent successfully fulfilled. A significant number of the

Czech voters got acquainted with the Method owing to the online game. There were in total 326 790 voting participants in the P21 in both phases of the game.

Almost 162,000 people participated in this first phase of the game. The first phase visitors generated a “catalogue” of 617 popular Czech personalities and politicians. Comments and support for the candidates expressed during the first phase on the P21 website could eventually encourage these candidates to run for the real office.

In the second phase of the P21, 164 869 people voted about nine official presidential candidates. A significant number (42.6%) of them used all three plus votes they had at their disposal, and on average 2.6 plus votes were used. These figures show online voters got familiar with the Janeček Method (D21) and the multiple plus votes were vastly applied. However, it is necessary to stress that the results of the game may be representative only for internet users, thus logically biased in favour of certain population groups with more liberal political opinions.

Nonetheless, the parallel representative survey that the IH21 conducted during the two election days of the first round of the presidential elections on the representative

40 sample showed that the voting method matters and delivered the same winning candidate, i. e. Jiří Drahoš, like the P21.

In conclusion, the P21 was the first online game of its kind in the Czech

Republic and to our knowledge the biggest voting games in the world regarding the number of participants. Both phases of the P21 implementation attracted enormous attention from the public and the P21's webpage became a popular source of information about the presidential candidates. This is supported by the 2 996 582 unique website visitors which is, in fact, an equivalent of one-third of the population of the Czech Republic. The general public was also very active on the related

Facebook page dedicated to the promotion of the game, debating vividly and leaving even more than a thousand comments per day in the last phase of the campaign.

Besides the voting, people could also fill up the questionnaire about their values, which also presents valuable insights on voting behaviour.

Though the game’s initial objective was to assess the Janeček Method’s impact on political election results and voter behaviour, the P21 evolved into a large-scale social project boosting citizens’ political knowledge and engagement via the P21 Voting Advisor - i.e., election calculator, where voters could compare candidates’ profiles along specified criteria.

These facts imply that there is considerable public interest in the use of the alternative voting method and more broadly in the gamification related to serious political issues such as presidential elections.

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DOI: 10.1016/j.electstud.2016.04.010