[EM] Open-source VoteFair ranking software is now available

[Richard Fobes]

Software that calculates VoteFair ranking results is now available in an 
open-source version.

The CPAN version of the VoteFair-ranking module is easy to install and 
runs on Linux, Mac OS X, and (if Strawberry Perl is installed) Windows. 
  Here is the link:

 
http://search.cpan.org/~fobes/Voting-VoteFairRanking-5.00/lib/Voting/VoteFairRanking.pm

(Or you can do a Google search for "VoteFair ranking cpan".)

Installation instructions for a full demo -- that reads sample election 
data from an XML file and generates an HTML web page showing the results 
-- is available here:

     https://github.com/cpsolver/VoteFair-ranking

Changing the results to a language other than English can be done by 
editing a small text file.

VoteFair ranking is described at www.VoteFair.org and in the book 
"Ending The Hidden Unfairness In U.S. Elections".

The current version (5.00) implements these portions of VoteFair Ranking:

* VoteFair popularity ranking.  This voting method calculates the full 
popularity ranking of all candidates (or choices in the case of a 
survey) from most popular and second-most popular down to least popular. 
  It uses the preference information collected on 1-2-3 ballots (or any 
equivalent way of expressing "ranked" preferences).  When a single 
position is being filled, the most popular candidate is declared the 
winner.  This calculation method is mathematically equivalent to the 
Condorcet-Kemeny election method.

* VoteFair representation ranking.  This voting method is used to elect 
a second candidate who represents the voters who are not 
well-represented by the most-popular candidate, or to fill multiple 
board-of-director positions, or to choose a second simultaneous activity 
in addition to the most popular activity.  This method reduces the 
influence of the voters who are already well-represented by the most 
popular candidate (or choice), and it does so in a way that protects 
against strategic voting.  If instead the second-most popular candidate 
(as identified by VoteFair popularity ranking) were chosen, the same 
voters who prefer the first winner also can determine the second winner, 
and this can leave large numbers of other voters unrepresented. 
Additional levels of representation ranking can be used to fill 
additional seats, although VoteFair partial-proportional ranking should 
be used instead if "proportional representation" of political parties is 
needed, especially for the purpose of defeating attempts to gerrymander 
district boundaries.

* VoteFair party ranking.  This voting method ranks political parties 
according to a different kind of "popularity".  The results can be used 
in high-stakes elections to limit the number of candidates allowed by 
each party.  In such cases the two or three political parties that are 
ranked highest can be limited to offering just two candidates from each 
party, and lower-ranked parties can be allowed to offer one candidate 
each, and any additional parties can be prohibited from offering any 
candidate (because those parties are too unpopular and too 
unrepresentative).  Such limits have not been needed in the past because 
the fear of vote splitting has limited each political party to offering 
just one candidate in each contest.

The software uses the Vote-Info-Split-Join (VISJ) framework, which 
manipulates the text so that the VoteFair ranking software does not have 
access to candidate names or party names (which ensures a lack of bias 
that goes beyond just being able to view the source code).

If anyone needs help using this software to calculate results for any 
election, please contact me through the CPAN or GitHub or VoteFair.org 
contact info.

Richard Fobes