Decision parameters

Depending on the method, Accord will offer different parameters to allow you to tune the decision. This is a summary of those settings, how they work, and how to get the most out of them.

Quorum

For decisions where each person gets one vote and there are no delegated votes, quorum is the minimum number of people who must participate in a decision for it to be valid. Accord defines quorum as the minimum vote power that is resolvable (direct votes and any delegated votes applied to direct votes) for a decision on closure which validates a decision.

If the quorum is not met when a decision closes, Accord will indicate as much and won’t display results to avoid biasing any subsequent decisions your group might make.

The quorum can be specified as an absolute amount, or relative to the number of people who could potentially vote on a decision.

Number of winners

Accord will choose a number of winners from the options that were accepted (see “Acceptability threshold” below) and not blocked (see “Blocking threshold” below) based on which options received the most support.

As Accord is selecting winners, if it needs to choose one more winner but multiple options are tied for the next best score, Accord will include all tied options in its selection, causing more options to win than this parameter.

Accord will not select an option that is not qualified to win, so it is also possible fewer options will win than this parameter.

The number of winners can only be specified as an absolute amount. We recommend setting this value to a number greater than 1 for single transferable vote (STV) decisions, since STV is designed to select more than one winner. We recommend setting this value to exactly 1 for plurality decisions.

Acceptability threshold

You can choose whether an option should receive some minimum supportive vote power in order to win. Different methods may refer to this parameter differently:

  • In an approval decision, “minimum approval” is an absolute number which is the minimum number of votes an option needs to qualify
  • In a plurality decision, “minimum plurality” is a relative number which is the minimum portion of all votes cast in favor of an option for that option to qualify

Blocking threshold

In consensus decisions, voters can choose to cast a blocking vote for any options on their ballot. By default, Accord will disqualify options that receive at least 1 blocking vote, however you can choose whether this number should be greater than 1.

Score labels

In score decisions, you can specify the labels for specific score values. This is useful if Accord’s default 0–n scores don’t suit your group’s needs. For example, you might choose to give emoji labels to scores 0–5 to create a star rating:

  • 0: (no stars)
  • 1: ⭐️
  • 2: ⭐️⭐️
  • 3: ⭐️⭐️⭐️
  • 4: ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️
  • 5: ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️