OpenSTV Questions

Dear OpenSTV,

Hello!
I would like to find out if OpaVote can work for our annual election of the faculty policy committee.
Our annual election is complicated and the procedure scrutinized. So before I can recommend OpaVote, and get approval to use OpaVote, I'd like to run a sample election.

Is there any way to indicate weight for a ballot? I am trying to run an
endorsement vote for candidates. The voter are town committee members whose
votes are meant to be weighted. The weight of each voter is measured by an
external factor.

I could enter the ballot each time for the appropriate weight, but that

Hi,

Paid for the app yesterday to do some research. Very nice work!

Can you point me to some documentation about the various options in
openstv that are available when you run a Meek election? I'd like to try
and figure out which settings would be most appropriate for a particular
election situation.

Hello,

I just did a test of OPAvote for two elections we will be running in
2013. The first will be online and the second in person.

There are some issues for us with OPAvote that make us believe we
would be better off using OpenSTV.

Here are the issues:
-- we don't know who has voted during and after the vote

Dear Sir/Madam,

I have downloaded the OpenSTV program and I have the raw data of my
election results that I need to tabulate. However, I dont know how to save
the raw data into .blt format such that it will be readable by the OpenSTV
program. It is not an option in my Textedit application. I am using a Mac.

Hi,

I am interested in using your software to count the votes for an election,
but I'm not sure if your software supports it.

We wish to use instant runoff voting with multiple winners - or preferential
block voting <[link]>. We
have tried using an old version of your software from 2010 that is

Hi Keith,

That sounds like the Bucklin system, which is also implemented in OpenSTV
and OpaVote. It was used in the early 20th century in a few cities -- most
notably in Colorado. It is sometimes called the Grand Junction system
after the city in Colorado. You can find some historical details and

Is it possible to use OpenSTV to run an election for multiple vacancies
with a RON (Re-open nominations) option where RON as a candidate is
protected from elimination but goes on accruing transfers until either all
places are filled, or until RON is elected to a place in which case any
remaining places are deemed to be unfilled (AVesqueRON)? How can one do

I have noticed a lot of voters in an election submitting ballots with only
1 candidate ranked 1st place, and leaving the rest blank.
Is there any point to doing this in ERS97? It seems like the equivalent of
not voting at all.
I am wondering if my software should have some kind of strongly worded

I have noticed that some people submit ballots with only 1 candidate ranked
1st place, and the rest blank.
Does this do anything, at all, in ERS97? It seems like the equivalent of
not voting at all.
I am wondering if I should have my software try to prevent it with a
strongly worded warning or something. What do you think should be the

Hello,

I just uploaded a ballot file to OpaVote to be tallied by the Condorcet method. I do not see an option to display a bar chart. The only visualization that I saw was the pairwise comparison matrix. Is the bar chart feature available for Condorcet elections?

Thank you for your assistance

Hi,

I think I've come around a minor bug in OpenSTV. There is a straight-
forward work-around to the bug.

A. Bug description: In OpenSTV it is not possible to run an election
with as many or less candidates as there are seats. OpenSTV allows a
maximum of candidates of one minus the number of seats.

Hello,

Is there a way to have a field for a write-in candidate in an Opavote
election?

Thank you,

Karl Seeley

Associate Professor of Economics

Hartwick College

Just today I experienced a Congressional District Convention at which 400
delegates utilized IRV for to elect eight officers:
3 Delegates to our National Convention
3 Alternate Delegates to our National Convention
1 Presidential Elector and
1 Alternate Presidential Elector
Our State party rules require a separate ballot/election for each of the

Hi,

there were some errors in my post below, so I reformulate it with the
errors corrected to make it more understandable.
Please disregard and discard my previous post under the same subject:

In elections of the Czech Green party, an empty ballot is a valid
vote.
When using static quotas in STV empty ballots are of importance, as

Hi

the Green Party of California STV is the only STV method in Open STV,
which does not elect any candidate, which doesn't reach the threshold.
All other methods always elect candidates in the final round, using
static thresholds even where the candidates don't meet the threshold.

Example - 1 seat election:

Hello OpaVote folks -
I'm having trouble with election #153008, a test election for a real one
I'd like to start today. Whether I type in voters to add or upload a text
file with one e-mail address per line, the election isn't processing them.
Strange behavior:
- if I "download list of voters" I can see all of the e-mail addresses