How to interpret STV results

STV (“single transferable vote”) is a method which reallocates votes in rounds each time it selects a winning option or removes a losing option.

How votes are counted in STV

Accord first allocates votes to the option according to each vote’s first choice. Then Accord runs successive rounds of reallocation until enough winners are selected or votes are exhausted and no additional winners can be selected.

For each round, Accord first checks options against the quota (Accord uses the Droop quota by default). If any have a surplus, Accord reallocates the surplus votes of the option with the greatest surplus, including any fractions of votes. Otherwise, Accord reallocates all the votes belonging to the option with the least allocated votes.

During reallocation, Accord uses a method similar to the Wright method to reallocate votes fractionally based on the order of preferences of every vote in the group needing reallocation. For example, if option A had a surplus of 20%, for each vote that listed a next preference, Accord allocates 20% of a vote to that option.

How Accord summarizes STV results

At this time, Accord displays only the final number of votes that were allocated to a candidate at the end of the STV procedure. Because STV aims to allocate votes such that winning candidates have the same amount, you’re likely to see the same or very similar score numbers for multiple options.