City
of Cambridge upgrades vote counting software with ChoicePlus Pro
Oakland,
Calif— October 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.
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' Choice Plus 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," notes 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 Choice Plus
Pro, you can have ranked-ballot election results on Election Night."
Voting
Solutions, LLC is a closely held partnership based in Oakland, California. For
more information, contact Voting Solutions by phone at 925-676-1974, or by
e-mail at info@votingsolutions.com. Please visit Voting Solutions' website at
http://www.votingsolutions.com.
Editor
Contact:
Bill
Gram-Reefer
Voting
Solutions
925-676-1974
www.votingsolutions.com
Teresa
Neighbor
Board
Of Elections, Cambridge MA
617-349-4361
Elections@ci.cambridge.ma.us
Rob
Richie
Center
for Voting and Democracy
301-270-4616