This approach can be used when not all voters have an equal say in the decisions being made. Weighted voting can be applied in various contexts, including shareholder votes, or Home Owners Associations for example.
Weighted voting (also known as multiple votes per ballot) allows you to assign weightings to each voter. The votes of voters with higher weightings will be worth more than the votes of voters with lower weightings, so they will have more influence over a vote's results.
Using Weighted Voting
Weighted voting can be used for a variety of applications; weights can be assigned based on:
Number or proportion of company shares held
Proportional representation of groups of people
Number of homes owned as part of a homeowners association
Percentage of square feet of property owned as part of a condominium board or strata. For example, in a condominium board vote, owners may receive one vote for every 1,000 square feet of property they own.
Setting Up Weighted Voting
On the Voters Page
Select "Weighted Ballots"
Ballot IDs will be automatically selected
Choose the Weight Precision of decimal places to be displayed
Lower in the Voter Information section, add your voter list
Enter a Ballot ID for each voter; learn more at Voter Options: Ballot IDs
Enter each voter's respective weighting (Each voter must have a weighting)
Viewing Results
When viewing your results, ElectionBuddy can show the results with the weights enabled or disabled using the slider below the questions options.
Shows you the total number of votes cast for each choice
Tallies the results using the total number of votes cast for each choice
Important Note: While weighted voting will work with Preferential Voting if there is only a single-seat position when there are multiple vacancies to select multiple winners (in which STV is used) weighted voting is unable to be applied within the calculation of the results.
The reason why STV and weighting are not compatible in ElectionBuddy is that we were unable to find a demonstration of an accurate result that is calculated by any sort of preferential voting method with weights. In other words, the overall results may not truly reflect the actual preferences of the electorate because of the weights.
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