VoteVote! Info

How should I vote?

Rank the candidates you support (first is best). For each of them, click on the box next to the candidate, and then click on your rank for that candidate.

Note that:

Your lower choices won't hurt the chances of your higher choices.
If you don't rank a candidate, it means you'd rather not have your vote count than have it count toward that candidate.
Only the order of your ranked candidates matters, and not the actual numbers.
You can't give two or more candidates the same rank.

What does VoteVote do?

VoteVote uses Preferential Voting - a convenient and accurate way to determine a majority winner in a single election.

It improves upon the "most votes wins" method (known as First-Past-the-Post), where if there are more than two candidates, someone can win even though most voters don't like that candidate. It minimizes "spoiler" or "vote-splitting" problems, where voting for your favorite candidate helps your least favorite candidate win.

How are votes counted?

All ballots are counted toward their highest-ranked remaining candidate. If no candidate has a majority of the counted votes, the candidate with the fewest votes is eliminated, and the process repeats.

Which candidate received my vote?

Follow the results link for your poll and look at the final round. At that point, your vote counted toward the remaining candidate who ranked highest on your ballot, or toward "none of these".

What happens if there is a tie?

Ties are not a very significant issue in public elections, because the number of ballots is large and ties are statistically rare. However, in a demonstration poll like this, they can happen frequently. Here, they are broken by comparing votes in successively previous rounds, or by random lot if that fails.

Let's do this in our local and national elections!

If you are interested in promoting this method of voting, the Electoral Reform Society can provide more information and help you find like-minded people.

Why didn't the totals change after I voted?

They did - try pressing your browser's 'Refresh' button.

I still don't get it!

We want to make sure that everyone who uses this site leaves with a comfortable understanding of how it works. Please email questions to:

What do you do with my email address in a private poll?

Your email address will be used to send a confirmation of your vote. In the rare event that your vote is not properly recorded, you may be contacted. Voter address information is not used for any other purpose.

Send us your feedback!

VoteVote is an ongoing project, and user feedback is an essential part of it. Everybody has a slightly different experience and it helps to hear what parts you found illuminating and what parts you found confusing or cumbersome. Comments and inquiries can be directed to:

Acknowledgements

Steve Willett created the first web-based instant runoff poll in 2000, as an interface to ChoicePlus Pro. DemoChoice evolved from this into its own project. This site is was developed by The Hug based on the original DemoChoice code and is sponsored by Make My Vote Count.

The original source code for DemoChoice has been released under the GNU General Public License(sic) and is available for download from here.

If you are looking for a version with of the code used in this version then mail The Hug and we will do you a tarball.