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Implementing a PB election with the Method of Equal Shares

On these pages, we give detailed explanation about some important implementation details that need to be considered when implementing a PB election using the Method of Equal Shares. We also provide some information about how to compute election outcomes using the Method of Equal Shares.

  • Input formats: How should voters express their preferences? We give a detailed discussion of how voters can express their preferences in a PB election, including approval voting, distributing points, and rankings. We give recommendation about which input formats are best. The Method of Equal Shares is compatible with all input formats in common use. [more]
  • How to break ties? In rare instances, a tie between two projects may occur while computing the election outcome with the Method of Equal Shares (for example, when two projects have the same number of votes and have the same cost). We describe considerations for how to break ties in practice, and show through simulations that ties are very rare (<1% probability). [more]
  • Completion of the Method of Equal Shares. We describe how to complete the Method of Equal Shares, which is necessary to compute the election outcome. This refers to a process of making sure that the election outcome spends all of the available budget. [more]
  • Advice for project proposers. We give advice to project proposers about how to design a project proposal that has a good chance of winning in a PB election which uses the Method of Equal Shares. [more]
  • How to deal with city districts? Larger cities with several districts can choose to either hold separate PB elections for each district, or run a single city-wide election. We discuss the advantages and disadvantages of each approach. [more]
  • Voting platforms. We give a list of digital voting platforms that could be used to run an election using the Method of Equal Shares. [more]
  • How to compute the results? A free online tool allows computation of the winners. We also give a list of software packages that can compute the election outcome using the Method of Equal Shares, as well as useful code snippets in Python and JavaScript. [more]
  • Resources. A list of academic papers, press coverage, videos, and other websites about the Method of Equal Shares. [more]