Should the FIDE voting system be reformed and if so how?

[Brian Towers]

FIDE, like its corrupt brother FIFA, has a one member one vote system which gives equal voting rights to mighty Russia, with 76353 registered players, as it does to Cambodia with 7 (or, strangely, Bulgaria with 1). When the minnows have the same single vote as the giants it makes the corruption of bought votes tempting, easy and more likely. Should the voting system be changed to make it more representative and less subject to the temptations of corruption?

If so, how should it be reformed?

One vote per FIDE registered member would give the following top 25 federations -
Players Federation
76353 Russia
76351 India
52792 France
48332 Spain
36048 Germany
34098 Turkey
31873 Iran
23574 Poland
21338 Italy
20823 Greece
15602 United States
14448 Brazil
12449 Czech Republic
12371 Sri Lanka
11546 Ukraine
10259 Hungary
8844 Serbia
8476 Argentina
8304 Romania
8249 Colombia
7904 Croatia
7253 Malaysia
7134 Slovakia
(7132 FIDE)
6995 England
6699 Netherlands

The FIDE number looks strange until you look at the bottom 10 -

20 San Marino
19 Djibouti
18 Sao Tome and Principe
18 Papua New Guinea
17 Comoros
14 Sierra Leone
10 Antigua and Barbuda
8 British Virgin Islands
7 Cambodia
1 Bulgaria

How somebody (a Turk I suspect) managed to get a Bulgarian registration in light of https://www.fide.com/component/content/ ... iners.html I'm not sure. The FIDE number is probably mostly players formerly registered as Bulgarian.

Of course raw registration numbers are open to manipulation. How about going for a quality measurement like number of GMs? That is much harder to fiddle. There the numbers look like this for the top 20 -

GMs Federation
225 Russia
93 Germany
89 United States
87 Ukraine
51 Spain
51 France
51 Serbia
51 India
50 Hungary
45 China
43 Poland
42 Israel
39 Armenia
36 England
35 Czech Republic
35 Netherlands
33 FIDE
30 Georgia
30 Croatia
24 Cuba

and like this for the bottom 20 -

2 Algeria
2 Andorra
2 Unired Arab Emirates
2 Tunisia
1 Wales
1 Zambia
1 Venezuela
1 Uruguay
1 Tajikistan
1 Albania
1 Bolivia
1 Costa Rica
1 Faroe Islands
1 Dominican Republic
1 Ecuador
1 Ireland
1 Morocco
1 New Zealand
1 South Africa
1 South Korea

One obvious snag with this is that only 87 federations out of 190 have at least one grandmaster, so perhaps GM count + 1 would be better.

Any other suggestions?

[Roger de Coverly]

Any other suggestions?

You could base it on the number of rated games.

Once Campomanes realised that the secret of electoral success in FIDE was to sign up as many Federations as possible and make them beholden to their sponsor, any sort of activity, strength or player based weighting became next to impossible to get adopted. The ECF has an activity based weighting for votes, but getting those who have influence within such a system to agree to dilute their power to empower individuals has proved next to impossible. The biggest and only concession being that those who didn't represent organisations could have a few more votes.

[Brian Towers]

Any other suggestions?

You could base it on the number of rated games.

Looking at the data for June there are about 40 federations whose players have played no rated OTB (standard, rapid, blitz) games so probably better to look at a longer period.
Looking at the last 12 months the top 25 looks like this -

Games Federation
700693 Russia
325296 Spain
320386 India
299999 Poland
281983 Iran
279289 France
208818 Germany
170953 Italy
156493 Ukraine
128691 Czech Republic
97182 Greece
95667 Norway
91597 Romania
91366 Serbia
83103 Turkey
76987 Hungary
74770 Sweden
68734 Brazil
65039 Slovakia
64044 Kazakhstan
62920 Croatia
58723 Argentina
56644 Lithuania
53545 Israel
53507 England

and the bottom 25 like this -

72 Maldives
63 Seychelles
61 Somalia
59 Burkina Faso
53 Laos
43 Mauritius
38 Cameroon
27 Sao Tome and Principe
23 Guam
23 Senegal
20 Antigua and Barbuda
19 Eritrea
17 Gambia
15 Gabon
8 Bhutan
7 Congo
6 Sierra Leone
6 Bulgaria
6 US Virgin Islands
1 Djibouti
0 British Virgin Islands
0 Haiti
0 Timor-Leste
0 Cambodia
0 Solomon Islands

Limiting it to standard games gives a top 26 (to include England) which looks like this -

Games Federation
275349 India
239269 Spain
220019 France
216543 Russia
170668 Germany
97162 Poland
94142 Iran
86276 Italy
83031 Czech Republic
72790 Turkey
63243 Hungary
53583 Greece
48016 Denmark
45033 Slovakia
44262 Sweden
43782 United States
41397 Romania
40570 Argentina
39130 Serbia
38061 Norway
33317 Netherlands
33195 Belgium
30906 Ukraine
30436 Austria
29966 Brazil
28301 England

Who knew the Russians were such blitz (227596) and rapid (256554) fiends?

[Michael Farthing]

I see my choice of "Neither of the Above" is not available in this poll.

This is not totally facetious. I rather think that as the possibility of making a change is miniscule the question is not worth answering

[JustinHorton]

Out of interest, how much appetite for voting reform in FIDE is there?

[Roger de Coverly]

Out of interest, how much appetite for voting reform in FIDE is there?

Probably less than there is with the ECF Council. Nigel Short would like to impose minimum standards of organisation as a condition of FIDE membership, but that's as far as it goes.

How do other international sporting and cultural bodies operate? Once you allow equal voting rights to small territories, you can get all the same problems as FIDE with disproportionate influence and the harvesting of votes.

[NickFaulks]

Out of interest, how much appetite for voting reform in FIDE is there?

I don't think that I have ever heard it discussed. Probably even those who would like to see some change accept that there will be no agreement on the form it might take.

On the lesser but related question of which territories should be entitled to membership, Nigel Short has in the past argued vehemently that Scotland, Wales, Jersey and Guernsey should be stripped of their right to send teams to Olympiads. He has wisely dropped that, at least for the duration of the campaign.

[Brian Towers]

I see my choice of "Neither of the Above" is not available in this poll.

This is not totally facetious. I rather think that as the possibility of making a change is miniscule the question is not worth answering

I'm not sure "None of the above" makes sense in the context of a "should" question but to humour you I've added "Don't Know", which has the unfortunate side effect of wiping out the previous votes

[LawrenceCooper]

Out of interest, how much appetite for voting reform in FIDE is there?

I don't think that I have ever heard it discussed. Probably even those who would like to see some change accept that there will be no agreement on the form it might take.

On the lesser but related question of which territories should be entitled to membership, Nigel Short has in the past argued vehemently that Scotland, Wales, Jersey and Guernsey should be stripped of their right to send teams to Olympiads. He has wisely dropped that, at least for the duration of the campaign.

These views have been brought up on the Facebook "Chess in Wales" page with more than one poster stating that Wales shouldn't vote for him for precisely this reason. Nigel had joined the WCU MB meeting in June via Skype and when asked about this (quoting Mark Adams) "We asked Short a direct question regarding his views on the home Nations as separate entities. While he admitted he thought it was an anomaly to have Wales, Scotland and England as separate countries in FIDE, or any World Sports body, he gave us a categorical assurance that he will keep the status quo and will not raise the issue if elected."

[Michael Farthing]

I'm not sure "None of the above" makes sense in the context of a "should" question but to humour you I've added "Don't Know", which has the unfortunate side effect of wiping out the previous votes

!! Well, that was very kind Brian, but it had only been said light-heartedly. Nevertheless, in gratitude, I have now added my vote accordingly.

[Brian Towers]

On the lesser but related question of which territories should be entitled to membership, Nigel Short has in the past argued vehemently that Scotland, Wales, Jersey and Guernsey should be stripped of their right to send teams to Olympiads. He has wisely dropped that, at least for the duration of the campaign.

These views have been brought up on the Facebook "Chess in Wales" page with more than one poster stating that Wales shouldn't vote for him for precisely this reason. Nigel had joined the WCU MB meeting in June via Skype and when asked about this (quoting Mark Adams) "We asked Short a direct question regarding his views on the home Nations as separate entities. While he admitted he thought it was an anomaly to have Wales, Scotland and England as separate countries in FIDE, or any World Sports body, he gave us a categorical assurance that he will keep the status quo and will not raise the issue if elected."

Well, Nigel is wrong. England, Scotland and Wales are not separate countries in FIDE. They are separate federations. FIDE is an international federation whose members are themselves federations, a formulation which avoids a lot of problems. Fortunately Yorkshire Chess Association is happy to remain an association and not become a federation

[Mick Norris]

Interesting Brian, the MCF is a federation, I hadn't thought Manchester could apply to be a member of FIDE

[LawrenceCooper]

On the lesser but related question of which territories should be entitled to membership, Nigel Short has in the past argued vehemently that Scotland, Wales, Jersey and Guernsey should be stripped of their right to send teams to Olympiads. He has wisely dropped that, at least for the duration of the campaign.

These views have been brought up on the Facebook "Chess in Wales" page with more than one poster stating that Wales shouldn't vote for him for precisely this reason. Nigel had joined the WCU MB meeting in June via Skype and when asked about this (quoting Mark Adams) "We asked Short a direct question regarding his views on the home Nations as separate entities. While he admitted he thought it was an anomaly to have Wales, Scotland and England as separate countries in FIDE, or any World Sports body, he gave us a categorical assurance that he will keep the status quo and will not raise the issue if elected."

Well, Nigel is wrong. England, Scotland and Wales are not separate countries in FIDE. They are separate federations. FIDE is an international federation whose members are themselves federations, a formulation which avoids a lot of problems. Fortunately Yorkshire Chess Association is happy to remain an association and not become a federation

I've quoted Mark Adams, not Nigel, so it could be either of them.

[Michael Farthing]

Ooh! I fee a Soheil question coming on:

What is the difference between 'association' and 'federation' in "happy to remain an association and not become a federation"

[and I have noticed the smiley, but I am wondering if there is any difference apart from the particular interpretation in this case]

Edit: Over to Barry, perhaps?

[JustinHorton]

Well, Nigel is wrong. England, Scotland and Wales are not separate countries in FIDE. They are separate federations. FIDE is an international federation whose members are themselves federations, a formulation which avoids a lot of problems. Fortunately Yorkshire Chess Association is happy to remain an association and not become a federation

As I recall, Nigel doesn't consider Scotland a nation at all, but a region, and has gone out of his way to say so in the manner we have grown accustomed to expect from him.