To implement an election using the single transferable vote, instant runoff voting, or other methods that use ranked ballots, the election administrator must (1) collect the ranked ballots from the voters and then (2) count the votes. OpenSTV counts votes but does not provide any services for collecting votes.

To collect ranked ballots, please consider the following:

Manual Collection

You always have the option of collecting ballots manually (e.g., on paper or via email). You can then use OpenSTV's ballot editor to create a ballot file. This is not practical, however, for large elections.

DemoChoice

DemoChoice is free, open source, and easy to use. You can identify voters by their email addresses and encryption is available to enhance security.

Basic On-line Ballot Box

The University of Cambridge in England uses OpenSTV for some of its elections. They designed their own user interface for collecting ballots, and have made the source code available. Using this for your own elections requires expertise in Internet software.