The primary goal of the OpenSTV project has always been to promote the use of ranked-choice voting by providing tools to make it as easy as possible for organizations to use it in their own elections.

Since 2003, I have been providing the OpenSTV software to allow people to count ranked ballots using methods such as instant runoff voting and the single transferable vote. As of this year, I am now also providing OpaVote which allows you to conduct a complete election from start to finish.

Since first releasing OpaVote in May, I have been working to add new features.

I've been maintaining a ballots page that has all the publicly available ballot data that I know about from government elections. Recently, I added ballot data for the following elections:

• San Francisco 2011
• Pierce County, North Carolina 2009
• Pierce County, North Carolina 2008

In total, I have ballot data from about 50 elections. I have some other ballot data that I have not yet processed into the ballot data format used by OpenSTV.

Note that I was previously charging for downloads of ballot data, but it is now free and you may do whatever you want with it.

I neglected to post the most recent issue of PRSA's Quota Notes newsletter. Here is a list of the articles with links:

• Disappointing 2010 federal elections report
• UK Government proposes using Quota-Preferential PR in House of Lords reform
• Antony Green speaks on UK’s referendum and NZ’s November 2011 plebiscite on MMP
• Melbourne University abandons Nanson’s pioneering PR for a
  plurality system

In this issue (available here):

• Editorial
• Committee meeting held 12 September 2011
• Countback (as we know it) is a failure, by Stephen Lesslie
• Submission to Warringah Council
• Future meetings

Here is an excerpt of the third article as it is of more general interest.

Countback (as we know it) is a failure
by Stephen Lesslie

In the ACT and Tasmania the procedure for countback is that the quota of votes that elected the candidate who has resigned (or died) is re-examined and distributed amongst those candidates who wish to be considered for the position. All other votes cast at the general election are ignored.

In this issue:

• Provincial and territorial elections yield distorted results
• Fair Vote Canada donates $10,000 to support charter challenge against current voting system
• Meetings with MPs
• Tom Kent, 1922 – 2011

Provincial and territorial elections yield distorted results

During the brief period from October 3 until October 11, provincial and territorial elections were held in Prince Edward Island, the Northwest Territories, Manitoba, Yukon, Newfoundland and Labrador, and Ontario. Saskatchewan held its provincial election on November 7. All these elections were held under the first-past-the-post system, and all yielded horribly distorted results, as usual.

Fair Vote Canada issued the following media releases: