1 <div id="title-header">
2 <span class="header">Selectricity Anywhere</span>
3 <span class="subheader"></span>
6 <p><em>Selectricity Anywhere</em> tries to help groups make better
7 decisions in their everyday lives. It tries to make voting technology
8 created for state elections and government use easily accessible for
9 every day decisions.</p>
11 <p><em>Selectricity Anywhere</em> is an email and SMS based interface to <a
12 href="http://rubyvote.rubyforge.org">RubyVote</a> a full-featured
13 election methods library with a focus on preferential decision-making.
14 It is similar to <a href="http://selectricity.media.mit.edu">Selectricity</a>,
15 a flexible web-based interface to the same voting machinery.</p>
17 <div class="normal-header">
18 <span class="header">Usage</span>
19 <span class="subheader"></span>
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@selectricity.org">vote@selectricity.org</a></em></strong></p>
40 <div class="normal-header">
41 <span class="header">Creating a New Election</span>
42 <span class="subheader"></span>
45 <p>To create a new election, send a message of the following form:</p>
47 <blockquote><tt>new <em>votename</em> <em>ABCD</em></tt></blockquote>
49 <p>Replace <tt><em>votename</em></tt> with an identifier for your vote.
50 All votes will need to be prefixed with this so pick something short and
51 easy to communicate to the other voters.</p>
53 <p>Replace <tt><em>ABCD</em></tt> with a list of letters, each of which
54 represents a choice in the election. If you are going choose lunch
55 between Chinese, Vietnamese, Mexican and Thai, a good string might be
56 <em><tt>CVMT</tt></em>. Capitalization is not necessary and does not
59 <p>You will receive a confirmation message with information on how to
64 <p>All votes will last only one hour. After one hour
65 from creating your vote, you will not be able to view the results or
66 vote in the election and your unique identifier will become available
67 for use in new votes.</p>
72 <h4>Example Command</h4>
73 <p><tt>new lunch CVMT</tt></p>
77 <div class="normal-header">
78 <span class="header">Voting</span>
79 <span class="subheader"></span>
82 <p>To vote in an election, send a message of the following form:</p>
84 <blockquote><tt><em>votename</em> <em>ABCD</em></tt></blockquote>
86 <p>Replace <tt><em>votename</em></tt> with an identifier for the vote you
87 would like to vote in.
89 <p>Replace <tt><em>ABCD</em></tt> with a list of the the choices <em>in
90 the order that you prefer</em>. Please list all choices and do not
91 include any letters that are not choices. Send the choices as one "word"
92 -- do not separate them with spaces or punctuations. Capitalization is
93 not necessary and does not matter.</p>
95 <p>Each voter will receive a confirmation message for their vote after it
99 <h4>Example Command</h4> <p><tt>lunch TVMC</tt></p> <p>This would vote
100 express a preference of Thai over Vietnamese over Mexican over Chinese
101 in the election created in the example above.</p>
104 <div class="normal-header">
105 <span class="header">View Results</span>
106 <span class="subheader"></span>
109 <p>To view the results of an election, send a message of one of the
113 <tt>results <em>votename</em></tt><br />
114 <em>.. or ..</em><br />
115 <tt>res <em>votename</em></tt>
118 <p>Replace <tt><em>votename</em></tt> with an identifier for the vote you
119 want results for.</p>
121 <p>The results will be computed and sent to the address that you sent
122 the message from .</p>
124 <div class="example">
125 <h4>Example Command</h4>
126 <p><tt>res lunch</tt></p>
129 <div class="normal-header">
130 <span class="header">Information on a Vote</span>
131 <span class="subheader"></span>
134 <p>To receive information on a vote, send a message of the following
138 <tt>info <em>votename</em></tt><br />
139 <em>.. or ..</em><br />
140 <tt><em>votename</em></tt>
143 <p>Replace <tt><em>votename</em></tt> with an identifier for the vote you
144 want information on.</p>
146 <p>Information will be sent to the address that you sent the message
149 <div class="example">
150 <h4>Example Command</h4>
151 <p><tt>info lunch</tt></p>
154 <h2>General Help</h2>
156 <p>To receive help on using the system, send a message of the following
161 <em>.. or ..</em><br />
165 <p>The system will respond with help information. However, the help is
166 designed to fit inside a 155 character text message and will be
167 <em>much</em> less extensive than the help on this page.</p>
169 <div class="normal-header">
170 <span class="header">Advanced Usage</span>
171 <span class="subheader"></span>
174 <p>There are two advanced types of usages that users of <em>Selectricity
175 Anywhere</em> might want to be aware of.</p>
177 <dt><strong>Candidate Descriptions</strong></dt>
179 <p>During vote creation, users can provide longer descriptions for
180 candidates using a vote creation command of the following form:</p>
183 <tt>new <em>votename</em> <em>ABCD</em> <em>A:description B:description C:description D:description</em></tt>
186 <p>The first three arguments are from the standard vote creation. The
187 second include a series of one-word descriptions which are prefixed by
188 the vote character and a <tt>:</tt>.</p>
190 <p>Voters can see the voting list by sending a message containing
191 <tt>info <em>votename</em></tt> or <tt><em>votename</em></tt> as
192 described in the section on getting <em>Information on a Vote</em>.</p>
194 <div class="example">
195 <h4>Example Command</h4>
196 <p><tt>new lunch CVMT c:chinese v:vietnamese m:mexican t:thai</tt></p>
199 <p>During vote creation, users can specify a voting method other than
200 the default (Condorcet with cloneproof Schwartz sequential dropping).
202 <p>They do so using a vote creation command of the following form:</p>
205 <tt>new <em>votename</em> <em>ABCD</em> method<em>:methodname</em></tt>
208 <p>The first three arguments are from the standard vote creation.
209 <tt><em>methodname</em></tt> must be the name of a voting method that is
210 supported. Possible methods include:</p>
213 <li><tt>plurality</tt>: <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Plurality_electoral_system">Plurality Voting</a></li>
214 <li><tt>approval</tt>: <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Approval_voting">Approval voting</a></li>
215 <li><tt>condorcet</tt>: <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Condorcet_method">Condorcet voting</a></li>
216 <li><tt>ssd</tt>: <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Schulze_method">Schulze method</a> (Condorcet voting with cloneproof Schwartz sequential
217 dropping) <em>(default)</em></li>
218 <li><tt>borda</tt>: <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Borda_count">Borda count</a></li>
219 <li><tt>runoff</tt>: <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Instant_Runoff_Voting">Instant runoff voting</a> (IRV)</li>
222 <div class="warning">
224 <p>If you have selected approval or plurality voting, you
225 do not need to include a list of each candidate with each vote.</p>
229 <p>Voters can see the voting list by sending a message containing
230 <tt>info <em>votename</em></tt> or <tt><em>votename</em></tt> as
231 described in the section on getting <em>Information on a Vote</em>.</p>
233 <div class="example">
234 <h4>Example Command</h4>
235 <p><tt>new lunch CVMT method:approval</tt></p>