[EM] Some great online data and analysis for STV elections

[Scott Ritchie]

I noticed some talk of the study of the Debian elections that was
conducted here, but I feel like there's a more interesting resource to
play with.  Indeed, I and others have been playing with it quite a bit,
and using the results to advocate proportional representation locally:

http://davischoicevoting.org/index.php?page=asucd

Importantly, like the Debian elections, the entire ballot data is
available for download over the internet, both for old elections using
block voting and for elections using STV.  If anyone wants some older
data than is available on the website (we have 2 elections per year,
with roughly 3k voters), I can try and dig them up for you.

The StoveTop program mentioned there is a very nice python-based
counting program for ranked ballots based on pSTV that also generates
slick pictures like can be seen on the website.  I and the main author
have created a sourceforge project:
http://sourceforge.net/projects/stovetop

However, the first "real" release isn't there yet.  Once I find some
more time, I'll be helping the author do that.

Cheers,
Scott Ritchie