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Generating Results

Tally results report participation, blank votes, invalid votes, candidate totals, and algorithm-specific process data.

Acclaimed contests​

A contest with is_acclaimed: true is decided without a vote and is absent from decoded ballots. The tally therefore synthesizes its result from the published contest configuration instead of reading ballots or applying the configured counting algorithm.

The canonical acclaimed result has:

  • zero census, auditable votes, total votes, valid votes, invalid votes, blank votes, candidate totals, and percentages;
  • every eligible configured candidate marked as a winner in configured order, with deterministic winning positions 1..N; and
  • no counting-algorithm process data or participation-by-channel data.

Explicit blank and invalid markers, disabled candidates, and empty write-in slots are configuration artefacts and are excluded from the candidate result. Results screens and reports replace the normal participation summary with an acclamation notice. Paper, postal, and other tally sheets are rejected because there is no vote to add to an acclaimed contest.

Vote classifications​

Contest results use these vote classifications:

  • Explicit blank vote: the voter selected the contest's explicit blank candidate and did not select any regular candidate in that contest.
  • Implicit blank vote: the voter made no selection in the contest.
  • Explicit invalid vote: the voter selected the explicit invalid option, or the decoded ballot is otherwise marked as explicitly invalid.
  • Implicit invalid vote: the ballot is invalid because of the decoded contest contents, for example selecting the explicit blank candidate together with a regular candidate.
  • Declined vote: a ballot covered by decline-to-vote policy. Declined ballots are not valid votes, invalid votes, or blank votes at contest level.

total_blank_votes is the sum of explicit and implicit blank votes.

Valid votes and candidate votes​

total_valid_votes counts every ballot that is not invalid and not declined. Explicit and implicit blank votes are included in total_valid_votes.

Votes for candidates are calculated as:

votes_for_candidates = total_valid_votes - total_blank_votes

Candidate percentages use votes for candidates when the counting algorithm reports candidate rows against participating non-blank ballots. Summary rows labelled as valid votes include blank votes.

Compatibility note​

This is a breaking results-semantics change for 9.x. Before this change, Instant Runoff results reported total_valid_votes excluding blank votes. Plurality-at-large already counted blank votes as valid. Both algorithms now use the same definition: blank votes are valid votes, and a mixed blank plus regular candidate selection is an implicit invalid vote.