See also this comparison table (PDF).
Permitting a heavy fighter to represent a couple; could bring in more fighters and would certainly broaden the Coronet pool, but remains rattan-only and does not address the possible issues of low heavy numbers or Southron Gaard’s likely dominance of a rattan-based selection. (This format was originally proposed by Count Henri de Montferrant to address low participation in Lochac Crown Tournaments.) A "Champion" approach could be applied to any of the alternative selection formats where appropriate. Update November 2023: see working group summary.
- Triple prowess
Rotate tourneys sequentially through heavy, rapier and target archery forms over each term; this allows for a definitive outcome, maintains the prowess focus but broadens the field to enable far greater participation. This would also enable a much more diverse contender base in skills, gender and geography, but still has exclusivity aspects.
A variant (not that popular) was to run the three prowess tournaments simultaneously and have the Coronet drawn at random from the three winners. Or assign scores and allow entrants to enter as many of the tourneys as they wanted with the final total determining the outcome; this would require a multi-day event.
These formats could also be interleaved with a voting or lottery variant to allow non-athletic people a chance at the coronet.
- A&S championship
Would boost A&S participation rates and potentially tap a wider group depending on how organised; generally this option is not very popular due to major judging/criteria difficulties which are foreseen.
Given the large number of A&S categories undertaken, there were suggestions that an A&S approach should be equally common, if not much more so, than the prowess-based competitions and could cycle through different major subject areas to account for that (eg brewing, embroidery, C&I, garb etc).
- A voting system or a lottery or combination thereof
Indicative voting is part of the B&B selection process already. Concerns raised about the potential for populist capture.
A lottery has the advantage of a no-blame outcome, but its randomness does lead to concerns. That could be ameliorated by ensuring a strong pre-selection round to require participation requirements (eg x attendance at events/practices in previous year; residency; office served, A&S entries etc) in addition to being acceptable to the Crown.
A combination of voting and lottery can be designed to reduce factional voting, encourage broad participation, establish some appropriate pre-qualifiers, mirror some period practices etc; would need careful development and communications.
- a Venetian Voting System – the Coronet Ballot
A chance-based (lot) and choice-based (vote) decisions can be fruitfully combined – and have been in period – to get the best out of each process. Some discussion has been had concerning the Venetian Voting System which has been developed (informed by a lot of academic research and much discussion) to provide a fair, fun and period-based way to address proportionality, influence, experience and inclusion, while remaining manageable, allowing for regular turnover and reducing effects from undue influence, populism, vested interests or voting blocks, as well as providing a certain frisson and opportunity for theatre.
So we start with a Coronet-Investiture event and a Council of Electors formed from:
Sitting Representatives (office-based)
4 Seneschals or their representatives (Ildhafn, Cluain, Darton, Southron Gaard)
2 Baronial representatives (ie Baron/ess of Ildhafn, Southron Gaard)
1 Crown/outgoing-Coronet representative
Group Representatives (Citizen Electors proportional to group numbers – fairest approach though others could be used)
5 from Southron Gaard, including Gildenwick and Wildmoor
3 from Ildhafn including Cluain
2 from Darton including Shearwater
The Group Representatives could be randomly drawn by lot from those attending the event, or we allow intra-group cultural variation by saying each group gets to choose how they’ll identify their Citizen Electors beforehand or at the event (eg could be a Baronial Champion, the newest signed-up member, their highest Order of Precedence attending, winner of a scissors-paper-stone tourney, oldest representative....).
At 17 or so people, the Council is big enough to have internal checks and balances. It includes people who are necessarily highly engaged in our game (the Sitting Representatives) and thus presumably have significant SCA experience, while the random draws at Group level allow for even the newest member to have the chance to make a mark. The Electors would also change each time and over time, reducing power bases and overt influence while allowing for some institutional memory.
Every group would be fairly represented: as Hamlets become fully fledged groups, their independence can be recognised and representatives added.
(NB under this outline, Cluain and Ildhafn should be treated as separate groups - but just now their numbers are inconveniently close to even, giving them 1.5 people each which is, er, awkward; they can argue between themselves who gets the extra Elector…)
Candidates
The Law would have clauses on requirements for entering for the Coronet ballot; acceptability to the Crown being one. The run-up to the Coronet-Investiture could include requiring Letters of Intent and/or local meetings, providing a basic profile for the Council of Electors. All, one hopes, offering chances for playing the game, theatre and (fun) drama.
Voting Process
The Council of Electors retires with a list of the Coronet contenders.
- The names are put into an urn, then one set drawn out and discussed.
In contrast to a prowess tournament, this lets the qualities of both partners in each set to be taken into account. Electors would swear beforehand to keep all discussions, votes and outcomes secret (offering further opportunity for ceremony).
- Everyone votes on that pair: yes/no/no-opinion (eg by dropping tokens in a jar).
From here, there are a number of ways to proceed:
- If all (or two-thirds, or 75%) votes are in favour, voting is over, the Coronet is chosen.
If not, then a second name is drawn and so on until the threshold is reached.
OR
- the Electors continue through all the candidates, discussing and voting on every pair.
If any fail to get support from a basic majority of Electors, then they are eliminated.
If only one set gets all approvals, they win.
If none gets full/threshold levels of approval, or more than one set does, then:
- choose the Coronet by lot (ie draw out one set from the remainder)
OR (b) vote on the remaining sets; the Coronet goes to the most votes.
Experts say this “approval” system creates the highest degree of sincere representation, encouraging reduced bias and greater open-mindedness in considering candidates. It avoids split votes, thus reducing the chance of ending up with the least-acceptable as winner; it limits wasted or spoiler votes; allows more say; and reduces the likelihood of ties.
The question is not who is my favourite? as with a one-vote system, but can I support this candidate? Hence the inclination towards acceptability.
In a first-approval system, a loss is not necessarily a rejection as it might mean someone else gained full approval before your name was even seen. This might be a good way to address the potential for friction and resentment in any polling system. This could also be gained by including a random step whereby a Coronet is chosen through a random draw from a set of candidates.
The period Venetian combined lot-voting system is cited by experts as a sophisticated means of managing the worst aspects of choosing a leader, noting that it contributed to La Serenissima’s stability for half a millennium.
Pageantry and Pomp
It would be possible to create a whole range of theatre, pageantry and pomp around this – the Venetians provide some good period examples, as do the Papal elections and those of the Florentine Signoria, not to mention the spectacles around the Imperial Election of the Holy Roman Emperor or the County Palatine of the Rhine.
Letters of intent and invocation courts, splendour and seriousness, history and heraldry can all be brought to bear to give the occasion the gravitas that it deserves. The populace gets to have games, dances, tournaments while the Electors deliberate. Then comes the Announcement, the Investiture and much rejoicing.
- Auction
Sell the Coronet to the highest bidder or consortium. Straight-forward but seen as a tad mundane (despite Holy Roman Emperor precedents), more problematically as unfair/inequitable
- Wait-listed
Put your name down and join the queue; could take some time. What happens is you have to drop out temporarily; who gets first dibs…
In the initial casual survey almost 90 people commented on alternative selection processes (Q7), covering alternating martial combat (eg heavy, rapier, target archery; two mentioned combat archery) as well as A&S, service requirements, lottery, vote, Venetian-style vote+lottery, chess....The main aims focused on achieving greater inclusiveness and selection for leadership-appropriate skills/experience.
NB: Levels of inclusiveness available under various alternative selection systems (based on SCA NZ and Kingdom figures, not survey responses):
- Current rattan-only eligibility: 14% of paid SCANZ membership
- Triple-prowess (ie heavy, rapier, archery rotating): estimated 55%+
- Voting/lottery system: 100%
Rotation to allow greater levels of inclusivity and to select on non-athletic skills/experience was important for many. Of 137 respondents to Q8, the preferred or strongly preferred approach was:
- 59% for rotation through various (undefined) fields
- 32% for rotation through triple-prowess (ie heavy, rapier, archery)
- 25% for heavy-only scored (second-bottom, above pure lottery at 19%)
NB: the Venetian-style vote+lottery system was not included in the Q8 options, but had around a dozen positive mentions in the comments. Being able to select a clear winner was important and was a problem identified with the more subjective judging involved in an A&S selection (though this was also not an option in Q8).