Quota Preferential Vote Counting

Apologies, this system is currently not operational as our web server has changed and the software has not been ported/installed on the new server (and I've not had time to organise it). If you have an election you want to use the system for, you can try e-mailing me (lee@cs.mu.oz.au) and I might have time to run the count locally (particularly if its urgent/important for you).

*** Our system people change hardware/software occasionally without letting me know. If this system doesn't work please email me. Our Web server is currently being changed so the system might be somewhat unstable right now...

This page allows you to run elections using the Quota Preferential method of Proportional Representation. This is an excellent method of electing representative groups (eg, executive committees for associations). Of course we cannot guarantee that the implementation here is free of bugs and that the network is secure.

Before using your own data you might like to check out an example from the PRSA vote counting manual.

The system could be considered a prototype, though the output has been improved to provide reasonably detailed information about the progression of the count. You can look at the program (written in NU-Prolog) here, some additional documentation is here.

Number of positions to fill (eg, size of committee):

Number of candidates:

Candidates must be entered one per line in the order they appear on the ballot papers (it is assumed that all ballot papers have the candidates listed in the same order). For example:

White, A.
Green, B.
Brown, C.
Black, D.

Candidates:

Ballots must be entered one per line and the last line should be "END". Each line should have the preference numbers corresponding to each candidate on a ballot paper terminated by periods ("."). Spaces should be used for preferences which are not marked. For example, if the ballot paper looked like

White, A.  2
Green, B.
Brown, C.  1
Black, D.  3
indicating the first preference is for Brown, the second preference is for White and the third preference is for Black, then the ballot paper should be entered as:
2. .1.3.

Ballots:

Double check the data entered then ...