Selectricity Anywhere tries to help groups make better -decisions in their everyday lives. It tries to make voting technology -created for state elections and government use easily accessible for -every day decisions.
- -Selectricity Anywhere is an email and SMS based interface to RubyVote a full-featured -election methods library with a focus on preferential decision-making. -It is similar to Selectricity, -a flexible web-based interface to the same voting machinery.
- -You can use Selectricity Anywhere entirely by sending and -receiving emails or short text messages (SMS). In the US, most mobile -phones that cannot send email can send an text message or SMS to an -email address. Selectricity Anywhere's is designed to minimize the -amount of typing necessary to use the system while ensuring that answers -are small enough that they can fit in a mobile phone text message.
- -By default, all decisions are made with the - -Schulze method (Condorcet with Cloneproof Schwartz Sequential -Dropping), although the system can support other preferential and -non-preferential voting methods.
-Please direct messages to: vote@mako.cc
- - -To create a new election, send a message of the following form:
- -new votename ABCD- -
Replace votename with an identifier for your vote. -All votes will need to be prefixed with this so pick something short and -easy to communicate to the other voters.
- -Replace ABCD with a list of letters, each of which -represents a choice in the election. If you are going choose lunch -between Chinese, Vietnamese, Mexican and Thai, a good string might be -CVMT. Capitalization is not necessary and does not -matter.
- -You will receive a confirmation message with information on how to -vote.
- -All votes will last only one hour. After one hour -from creating your vote, you will not be able to view the results or -vote in the election and your unique identifier will become available -for use in new votes.
-new lunch CVMT
-To vote in an election, send a message of the following form:
- -votename ABCD- -
Replace votename with an identifier for the vote you -would like to vote in. - -
Replace ABCD with a list of the the choices in -the order that you prefer. Please list all choices and do not -include any letters that are not choices. Send the choices as one "word" --- do not separate them with spaces or punctuations. Capitalization is -not necessary and does not matter.
- -Each voter will receive a confirmation message for their vote after it -is recorded.
- -lunch TVMC
This would vote -express a preference of Thai over Vietnamese over Mexican over Chinese -in the election created in the example above.
-To view the results of an election, send a message of one of the -following forms:
- -- results votename- -
- .. or ..
- res votename -
Replace votename with an identifier for the vote you -want results for.
- -The results will be computed and sent to the address that you sent -the message from .
- -res lunch
-To receive information on a vote, send a message of the following -form:
- -- info votename- -
- .. or ..
- votename -
Replace votename with an identifier for the vote you -want information on.
- -Information will be sent to the address that you sent the message -from.
- -info lunch
-To receive help on using the system, send a message of the following -form:
- -- help- -
- .. or ..
- ? -
The system will respond with help information. However, the help is -designed to fit inside a 155 character text message and will be -much less extensive than the help on this page.
- - -There are two advanced types of usages that users of Selectricity -Anywhere might want to be aware of.
- -During vote creation, users can provide longer descriptions for -candidates using a vote creation command of the following form:
- -- new votename ABCD A:description B:description C:description D:description -- -
The first three arguments are from the standard vote creation. The -second include a series of one-word descriptions which are prefixed by -the vote character and a :.
- -Voters can see the voting list by sending a message containing -info votename or votename as -described in the section on getting Information on a Vote.
- -new lunch CVMT c:chinese v:vietnamese m:mexican t:thai
-During vote creation, users can specify a voting method other than -the default (Condorcet with cloneproof Schwartz sequential dropping). - -
They do so using a vote creation command of the following form:
- -- new votename ABCD method:methodname -- -
The first three arguments are from the standard vote creation. -methodname must be the name of a voting method that is -supported. Possible methods include:
- -If you have selected approval or plurality voting, you -do not need to include a list of each candidate with each vote.
-Voters can see the voting list by sending a message containing -info votename or votename as -described in the section on getting Information on a Vote.
- -new lunch CVMT method:approval
-Copyleft 2006 :: -MIT Media Lab and -Benjamin Mako Hill
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