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4 <h3>Selectricity Anywhere<br />
5 <font size="-1">Voting Machinery for the <em>Mobile</em> Masses</font></h3>
9 <p><em>Selectricity Anywhere</em> tries to help groups make better
10 decisions in their everyday lives. It tries to make voting technology
11 created for state elections and government use easily accessible for
12 every day decisions.</p>
14 <p><em>Selectricity Anywhere</em> is an email and SMS based interface to <a
15 href="http://rubyvote.rubyforge.org">RubyVote</a> a full-featured
16 election methods library with a focus on preferential decision-making.
17 It is similar to <a href="http://selectricity.media.mit.edu">Selectricity</a>,
18 a flexible web-based interface to the same voting machinery.</p>
22 <p>You can use <em>Selectricity Anywhere</em> entirely by sending and
23 receiving emails or short text messages (SMS). In the US, most mobile
24 phones that cannot send email can send an text message or SMS to an
25 email address. <em>Selectricity Anywhere's</em> is designed to minimize the
26 amount of typing necessary to use the system while ensuring that answers
27 are small enough that they can fit in a mobile phone text message.</p>
30 <h4>Important Note</h4> <p>By default, all decisions are made with the
31 <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Schulze_method">
32 Schulze method</a> (Condorcet with Cloneproof Schwartz Sequential
33 Dropping), although the system can support other preferential and
34 non-preferential voting methods.</p>
37 <p>Please direct messages to: <strong><em><a href="mailto:vote@mako.cc">vote@mako.cc</a></em></strong></p>
40 <h3>Creating a New Election</h3>
42 <p>To create a new election, send a message of the following form:</p>
44 <blockquote><tt>new <em>votename</em> <em>ABCD</em></tt></blockquote>
46 <p>Replace <tt><em>votename</em></tt> with an identifier for your vote.
47 All votes will need to be prefixed with this so pick something short and
48 easy to communicate to the other voters.</p>
50 <p>Replace <tt><em>ABCD</em></tt> with a list of letters, each of which
51 represents a choice in the election. If you are going choose lunch
52 between Chinese, Vietnamese, Mexican and Thai, a good string might be
53 <em><tt>CVMT</tt></em>. Capitalization is not necessary and does not
56 <p>You will receive a confirmation message with information on how to
61 <p>All votes will last only one hour. After one hour
62 from creating your vote, you will not be able to view the results or
63 vote in the election and your unique identifier will become available
64 for use in new votes.</p>
69 <h4>Example Command</h4>
70 <p><tt>new lunch CVMT</tt></p>
75 <p>To vote in an election, send a message of the following form:</p>
77 <blockquote><tt><em>votename</em> <em>ABCD</em></tt></blockquote>
79 <p>Replace <tt><em>votename</em></tt> with an identifier for the vote you
80 would like to vote in.
82 <p>Replace <tt><em>ABCD</em></tt> with a list of the the choices <em>in
83 the order that you prefer</em>. Please list all choices and do not
84 include any letters that are not choices. Send the choices as one "word"
85 -- do not separate them with spaces or punctuations. Capitalization is
86 not necessary and does not matter.</p>
88 <p>Each voter will receive a confirmation message for their vote after it
92 <h4>Example Command</h4> <p><tt>lunch TVMC</tt></p> <p>This would vote
93 express a preference of Thai over Vietnamese over Mexican over Chinese
94 in the election created in the example above.</p>
99 <p>To view the results of an election, send a message of one of the
103 <tt>results <em>votename</em></tt><br />
104 <em>.. or ..</em><br />
105 <tt>res <em>votename</em></tt>
108 <p>Replace <tt><em>votename</em></tt> with an identifier for the vote you
109 want results for.</p>
111 <p>The results will be computed and sent to the address that you sent
112 the message from .</p>
114 <div class="example">
115 <h4>Example Command</h4>
116 <p><tt>res lunch</tt></p>
119 <h3>Information on a Vote</h3>
121 <p>To receive information on a vote, send a message of the following
125 <tt>info <em>votename</em></tt><br />
126 <em>.. or ..</em><br />
127 <tt><em>votename</em></tt>
130 <p>Replace <tt><em>votename</em></tt> with an identifier for the vote you
131 want information on.</p>
133 <p>Information will be sent to the address that you sent the message
136 <div class="example">
137 <h4>Example Command</h4>
138 <p><tt>info lunch</tt></p>
141 <h3>General Help</h3>
143 <p>To receive help on using the system, send a message of the following
148 <em>.. or ..</em><br />
152 <p>The system will respond with help information. However, the help is
153 designed to fit inside a 155 character text message and will be
154 <em>much</em> less extensive than the help on this page.</p>
157 <h2>Advanced Usage</h2>
159 <p>There are two advanced types of usages that users of <em>Selectricity
160 Anywhere</em> might want to be aware of.</p>
162 <dt><strong>Candidate Descriptions</strong></dt>
164 <p>During vote creation, users can provide longer descriptions for
165 candidates using a vote creation command of the following form:</p>
168 <tt>new <em>votename</em> <em>ABCD</em> <em>A:description B:description C:description D:description</em></tt>
171 <p>The first three arguments are from the standard vote creation. The
172 second include a series of one-word descriptions which are prefixed by
173 the vote character and a <tt>:</tt>.</p>
175 <p>Voters can see the voting list by sending a message containing
176 <tt>info <em>votename</em></tt> or <tt><em>votename</em></tt> as
177 described in the section on getting <em>Information on a Vote</em>.</p>
179 <div class="example">
180 <h4>Example Command</h4>
181 <p><tt>new lunch CVMT c:chinese v:vietnamese m:mexican t:thai</tt></p>
184 <h3>Alternative Voting Methods</h3>
186 <p>During vote creation, users can specify a voting method other than
187 the default (Condorcet with cloneproof Schwartz sequential dropping).
189 <p>They do so using a vote creation command of the following form:</p>
192 <tt>new <em>votename</em> <em>ABCD</em> method<em>:methodname</em></tt>
195 <p>The first three arguments are from the standard vote creation.
196 <tt><em>methodname</em></tt> must be the name of a voting method that is
197 supported. Possible methods include:</p>
200 <li><tt>plurality</tt>: <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Plurality_electoral_system">Plurality Voting</a></li>
201 <li><tt>approval</tt>: <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Approval_voting">Approval voting</a></li>
202 <li><tt>condorcet</tt>: <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Condorcet_method">Condorcet voting</a></li>
203 <li><tt>ssd</tt>: <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Schulze_method">Schulze method</a> (Condorcet voting with cloneproof Schwartz sequential
204 dropping) <em>(default)</em></li>
205 <li><tt>borda</tt>: <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Borda_count">Borda count</a></li>
206 <li><tt>runoff</tt>: <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Instant_Runoff_Voting">Instant runoff voting</a> (IRV)</li>
209 <div class="warning">
211 <p>If you have selected approval or plurality voting, you
212 do not need to include a list of each candidate with each vote.</p>
216 <p>Voters can see the voting list by sending a message containing
217 <tt>info <em>votename</em></tt> or <tt><em>votename</em></tt> as
218 described in the section on getting <em>Information on a Vote</em>.</p>
220 <div class="example">
221 <h4>Example Command</h4>
222 <p><tt>new lunch CVMT method:approval</tt></p>
226 <p><font size="-1">Copyleft 2006 ::
227 <a href="http://www.media.mit.edu">MIT Media Lab</a> and
228 <a href="http://mako.cc">Benjamin Mako Hill</a></font></p>