[EM] Software for ranked ballots story

[DEMOREP1 at aol.com]

D- A major step to wipeout plurality and minority rule.

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Voting Solutions Announces City of Cambridge Upgrades Vote Counting Software 
With ChoicePlus Pro

OAKLAND, Calif.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Oct. 15, 2001--Voting Solutions, a leading 
developer and marketer of data processing software for ranked-ballot election 
systems in the U.S., announced that the Board of Election Commissioners of 
the City of Cambridge, Massachusetts has selected Voting Solutions' 
ChoicePlus Pro 2.1 software to process its upcoming City Council and School 
Committee elections. 

Powerful and flexible, ChoicePlus Pro (formerly PR Master) is the leading 
software used for tabulating ranked-ballot elections in the U.S. including 
Choice Voting (Single Transferable Vote or STV), and Instant Run-Off Voting 
(IRV or Alternative Voting). ChoicePlus Pro is the only computer program that 
has ever been used to count ranked-ballot style government elections in the 
United States, including Cambridge, MA, City Council and School Committee, 
and the New York City Community School Boards elections. 

"ChoicePlus Pro is fast and accurate and gives us the ability to publish 
unofficial results on Election Night and official results the next day," 
explained Teresa Neighbor, executive director of the City of Cambridge Board 
of Election Commissioners. "It used to take an entire week counting by hand. 
But now we can expect to get results into the paper the next morning." 

The City of Cambridge, Massachusetts uses the choice voting (STV) form of 
Proportional Representation to elect its nine-member City Council and 
six-member School Committee. Voters rank the candidates by preference: first 
choice, second choice and so on. If a voter's first choice is defeated then 
the ballot counts for the voter's second choice, and so on. This voting 
method ensures that all majority and minority viewpoints are both fairly 
represented on the City Council and School Committee. 

Voters mark their preferences by their first choice candidate, second choice, 
third choice, and so on. Voters then feed their ballots into optical scanners 
developed by Global Election Systems and the election data is transferred to 
a PC. Voting Solutions' ChoicePlus Pro program then processes the election 
data within minutes, and produces detailed reports that permit a complete 
audit of the election. 

See http://www.votingsolutions.com/camb99council/COUNCIL%20Round.htm to 
examine the Cambridge election data from 1999 as processed by Voting 
Solutions software to see how votes are transferred round by round until all 
seats are filled by STV. 

Ranked-ballot voting as employed in Cambridge is used widely around the world 
and is swiftly gaining popularity in the U.S, as many jurisdictions have 
approved the use of IRV as an alternative to expensive runoff and special 
elections as it produces a clear majority winner on Election Day. 

"Ranked-ballot voting systems truly make every vote count," noted Rob Richie, 
executive director of the Center for Voting and Democracy, a non-partisan 
organization that promotes fair elections. "They can also save jurisdictions 
the cost of runoff elections. San Francisco stands to save up to $2 million 
per year by implementing instant runoff voting in next year's ballot measure. 
Cambridge demonstrates that with modern voting equipment and software like 
ChoicePlus Pro, you can have ranked-ballot election results on Election 
Night." 

Voting Solutions, LLC is a closely held partnership based in Oakland. For 
more information, contact Voting Solutions by phone at 925/676-1974, or by 
e-mail at info at votingsolutions.com. Please visit Voting Solutions' website at 
http://www.votingsolutions.com. 

CONTACT:  

Voting Solutions 

Bill Gram-Reefer, 925/676-1974 

bill at votingsolutions.com 

www.votingsolutions.com 

or 

Board Of Elections, Cambridge, MA 

Teresa Neighbor, 617/349-4361 

Elections at ci.cambridge.ma.us 

or 

Center for Voting and Democracy 

Rob Richie, 301/270-4616 

rr at fairvote.org