How to Calculate RCV with Typeform and RankedVote's CSV Import
What is Ranked Choice Voting?
Ranked choice voting is a voting system where voters can select their most preferred choices on a ballot – first, second, third, and so on – instead of just voting for a single choice. If no candidate receives enough first ranked votes to win a majority, the lowest vote-getter is eliminated. Anyone who voted for the eliminated candidate has their vote redistributed to their next ranked choice.
This elimination and redistribution process repeats until a choice receives enough votes to win.
Why use Ranked Choice Voting?
Any time you're making a decision with more than two choices and where voters have equal say, ranked choice voting is the right tool for the job. It uncovers preferences with greater accuracy and fidelity than traditional voting methods.
What is Typeform?
Typeform is an intuitive no-code platform used by over 150,000 customers to build interactive forms. You can combine dozens of different question types to collect data on anything you can dream up.
But, like so many online form platforms, it does not support ranked choice voting directly. You'll need to use the RankedVote CSV Import Add-On to bridge that gap.
Read on to understand how to set up Typeform to simulate a ranked choice ballot, export your data, and calculate the results using RankedVote's CSV Import.
Steps to Calculate RCV using Typeform
Determine the Decision That Needs to be Made
The first step is to get crisp on what decision needs to be made. Ranked choice voting works great in situations where you’re making a decision amongst a group of people with equal say. Groups like teams, organizations, and fan communities. This makes it differ from techniques like “weighted voting” or “100-point exercises.”
Fantastic uses for ranked choice voting include: selecting leadership, prioritizing work, running contests, and choosing award winners.
Once you know the decision that needs to be made, it’s time to start creating the survey.
Create the Ranked Choice Ballot Using "Matrix" Content Type
In Typeform, you can create a new form from scratch. Or, you can add a question to an existing form with your decision that needs to be made ("content" in Typeform's terminology). Here are the key steps to configure the form for ranked choice voting:
Click "Add content" and then select "Matrix" in the "Rating & ranking" area (picture below). The "Matrix" type works best for a few reasons. First and foremost, it creates an experience for your voters that most resembles the ranked choice ballot they may encounter in the real world. Second, when you get to exporting the data, there's less cleanup that you need to do.
A basic matrix question will now be placed in your form editor. Typeform makes it really easy to edit. Just click into any of the areas you want to edit and adjust.
- Title (#1) — Rename this to whatever question or decision you're putting to your voters. It displays to your voters, but does not show up in the CSV export.
- Columns (#2) — These are the "rankings" voters will provide and should start with numbers (e.g. "1st, 2nd, 3rd, etc."). Add columns for the number of rankings you want voters to provide. Starting with numbers allows for the data to be exported in a way that the RankedVote CSV Import expects.
- Rows (#3) — These are the "choices" that your voters will rank. Add rows until you have all your choices listed. Click into these fields and type in whatever your choices are called (e.g. Banana, Strawberry, etc. in the image below).
Collect Responses
Now that you've created your ranked choice form, you need people to vote! Click "Publish" and copy the link you're given. Email it, text it, put it on your website...whatever works best to get it in front of your voters.
Any votes that are submitted are referred to as "responses" in Typeform.
Export Responses as CSV
Once all the votes are in, it’s time to go get that spreadsheet.
Go to "Results" (#1 in the screenshot below) and then click "Responses" (#2). This gives you a table view of all the responses that have come in so far. You'll need to do a little column wrangling to get just the rankings to appear in the data.
Click the gear icon for "Table Settings" (#3) to control which columns show up in the CSV export.
The "Table settings" popup will display. The key thing is to isolate the data to the specific ranked choice question you're asking. Turn off any row that's not directly relevant (like "Response type" in the image below).
Next, click on the "Download responses" icon next to the "Table settings" icon to open the file download options.
Within the file download options, you'll typically want to select "All Responses", "CSV File," and "Direct Download" as shown in the image below. If you have a lot of responses, then "Via email" may be a better choice.
Click the "Download" button and you're into the home stretch!
Check CSV Formatting
Open the CSV file that downloaded to your computer in your favorite spreadsheet program. Typeform includes additional fields by default. One you'll want to keep, but the others you'll want to remove.
- KEEP: The first column labeled with a pound sign (#). This is the unique identifier for the voter.
- REMOVE: Response Type, Start Date, Stage Date, Submit Date, Network ID, Tags (all highlighted in the image below)
NOTE: The "Network ID" column can indicate duplicate voters. You can use it identify rows to delete.
When you're done, it should look like this:
- The first column is the unique identifier for each voter ("Response" in Typeform's terms)
- The first cell in all columns after the first are the names of the choices that your voters voted upon
- The rankings under each column start with a number (i.e. "1st" or "1")
What if I have more columns?
If you ask multiple ranked choice questions or if you added additional fields (like asking for "First Name" and "Last Name") in your form, you'll need to do some column editing. The RankedVote CSV Import assumes it's dealing with one question at a time. The additional columns will muddy your results.
For each ranked choice question, save separate CSV files that contain your identifier (likely "Response ID") and just the columns representing the choices of that specific ranked choice question. Delete any excess columns.
Use the RankedVote CSV Import Add-On
The votes are in, the CSV is exported, the columns are formatted...now it’s RCV calculation time! 🎉
Go to the RankedVote CSV Import Add-On, choose the CSV you just created, and click "Calculate Results."
Woohoo! You've now added this powerful decision-making technique to Typeform!
Don't forget to check out the in-depth guides for using the CSV Import Add-On and Understanding RCV Results to get the most out of all the features at your disposal.
