Same votes, different winners

Nine friends are choosing dinner: 🍕 pizza, 🍜 Thai or 🍣 sushi. Change how each one feels, and see who wins under each way of voting. The counting is the same code that counts every TallyLab poll.

Try an example:

The dinner example Everyone's second choice Pizza fans feel strongly A three-way loop

Sushi is nearly everyone's second choice, and beats both others head to head, but it has the fewest first choices. Ranked choice drops it in the first round; approval, quadratic and STAR see its broad support.

Who wins

Plurality Pizza Approval Sushi Ranked choice Thai Quadratic Sushi STAR Sushi

The same votes give three different winners. Pick a method to see how it counts.

How STAR counts

More →

Each friend gives every option 0 to 5 stars. The two with the most stars go to a runoff, won by the one more friends gave more stars.

Here, each friend gives their favorite 5 stars, others they're happy with 3, and the rest 0.

Pizza 20 stars
Thai · finalist 21 stars
Sushi · finalist 31 stars

Runoff: 6 friends prefer Sushi, 3 prefer Thai. Sushi wins.

Head to head

For each pair, how many friends rank one above the other.

  • Thai beats Pizza, 5 to 4
  • Sushi beats Pizza, 5 to 4
  • Sushi beats Thai, 6 to 3

Sushi beats both others one on one.

The nine friends

Each friend's ranking, from favorite to least favorite.

Friend Ranking Happy with Feels strongly
1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
9

Happy with is how far down their ranking a friend would still be glad to go; it's what they tick in an approval poll, and the options they give 3 stars in STAR. Feels strongly only changes quadratic voting, where friends can show how much they care.

Try it with your own group

Make an approval or ranked choice poll in a minute and share the link. Free, no sign-up.

Create a poll How the methods work