A new version of OpenSTV, version 1.6, is now available for download by using the download link at the top of the page.
New features in this version include:
- Ties can be broken manually in addition to randomly,
- Plugin support for different election report types,
- Allows ballots with duplicate and skipped rankings and ballot IDs, and
- Improvements to speed and usability.
Since about 2001, the website DemoChoice.org has been providing a voter interface system for running elections with instant runoff voting and the single transferable vote. Separately, OpenSTV has been providing a desktop application and vote-counting engine since 2003.
The developers of DemoChoice and OpenSTV have come together to create a joint effort that incorporates the best of both projects. DemoChoice now has a version that uses OpenSTV's vote counting engine at http://openstv.demochoice.org/.
This version of DemoChoice supports most of OpenSTV's counting methods, and allows you to run a complete election, from collecting the votes to displaying the election results.
I obtained a copy of the of final ballots for the Cambridge, Massachusetts City Council and School Committee elections and used OpenSTV to verify the official count.
You can download a PDF reports of the City Council election and School Committee election created using OpenSTV, and compare them to the official results at the website for the Cambridge Election commission.
Thomas Wright Hill is generally credited with inventing STV in the early 19th century. A statement of his voting rule appears in the Laws of the Society for Literary and Scientific Improvement; established in Birmingham, October the 19th, 1819.
Brian Wichmann has kindly provided a scan of this document, downloadable as a 5MB PDF. The original is available for inspection in the Birmingham Central Library (reference 62702).
The rule itself appears in section X of the bylaws:
Cambridge held its STV elections for city council and school committee last night, and since I live nearby, I decided to stop by and watch how they count the votes. Cambridge has been doing STV elections since 1941, and it shows by how organized they are. Here is my understanding of how the vote counting worked.
Cambridge uses ballots where the voters fill in bubbles with a pen to rank the candidates. Here is an example of this year's ballot.
