With paper ballots, it is easy enough to bundle them up and keep track of the number of papers in a bundle and the value of each bundle, as they progress from candidate to candidate.
I was asked to sit on the elections committee of a scientific organisation that conducted its elections using STV, with ballots sent in by email, so I had no bits of paper to physically move around.
I couldn't find software to do the count, so I wrote my own - in Excel Visual Basic.
The current version1.1, was updated in 2005-08024 and simply added .xls and .txt fiename extensions to try to make it more usable on Windows.
The files are here for you to try, if you want. The README file tells you how it works. I use Macs, so the easiest way for me to make them available is as a binhex/stuffed folder, but the files should work on Windows machines too, if you can download them OK. Free unstuffing software is available form the inestimable www.stuffit.com
The files are:
As far as I can see, they work, subject to the limitations noted in the README file.
prepared by Jon May on September 9th 1999