• Q. Where do I get my questions answered?
• Q. Which voting method should I use?
• Q. Will you implement a feature that I would like to see in OpenSTV?
• Q. Will you implement duplicate rankings?

Q. Where do I get my questions answered?

A. Send an email to openstv at googlegroups.com.

Q. Which voting method should I use?

A. There is no clear answer to this question and you will get different answers from different people, but we will give our recommendations here.

If you are electing one person and simplicity is important, then we recommend instant runoff voting. Instant runoff voting is easy to explain and gives good results.

If you are electing one person and simplicity is not important, then we recommend Condorcet voting. Most people agree that Condorcet is the best method for electing one person, but it is more difficult to explain.

If you are electing multiple people and simplicity is important, then we recommend Scottish STV, as it is the simplest of all the STV methods.

If you are electing multiple people and simplicity is not important, then we recommend Meek STV. Most people agree that Meek STV is the best variant of STV, but it can only be implemented with a computer program.

Q. Will you implement a feature that I would like to see in OpenSTV?

A. It depends.

The main factors include (1) how worthwhile the desired feature is, (2) how important you or your organization is, and (3) how hard it is to implement the desired feature.

For example, if we have no idea who you are, but your request is a really good one and it is easy to implement, it will probably make the next release. On the other hand, if the United States Senate asks us to implement a really crummy feature, then we probably wouldn't do it.

Q. Will you implement duplicate rankings?

A. No.

Some STV implementations allow voters to use duplicate rankings or give multiple candidates the same ranking. For example, rank Bob first, rank both Mary and Jim second, and rank Jane third. In our opinion, this is a really bad idea. When implementing any feature, it is necessary to trade off the benefits the feature would provide against the costs of implementing the feature.

Duplicate rankings do not provide any significant benefit. If a voter considers multiple candidate to be equally good, then the voter suffers no harm if required to order them. If a voter does use duplicate rankings, then the ballot can be reordered before the votes are counted. For example, the above ballot could be randomly reordered to the following: (1) Bob, (2) Mary, (3) Jim, and (4) Jane. Since the voter does not see any difference between Mary and Jim, the voter is not harmed by randomly picking Mary to be second and Jim to be third.

Duplicate rankings are difficult to implement. While it is certainly possible to implement duplicate rankings, the code is necessarily more complicated, which increases the likelihood of bugs and an error in the outcome.

For example, the City of Burlington, Vermont allows duplicate rankings in its implementation of IRV, but this will not be implemented in OpenSTV.