New features and updates

March 2026

Three ballot styles

RCV123 now offers three different ballot styles, so you can choose the voting experience that best fits your audience.

Grid ballot

• The classic RCV123 voting experience: a table of candidates and ranking columns where voters fill in bubbles.
• The ballot now guides you through the ranking process step by step with dynamic instructions that update as you vote.
• A highlighted column shows where to enter your next ranking, making it easy to see where to vote next.

Training mode for grid ballots

• Add ?training=true to any ballot link to enable training mode, where voters can intentionally make errors like ranking the same candidate twice, voting for multiple candidates in the same column, or skipping columns.
• The ballot highlights errors in real time and displays specific error messages, making it a powerful tool for teaching how ranked choice voting works.

Drag and drop ballot

• A list-based voting experience where voters drag candidates into their preferred order, or use the + and × buttons to add and remove rankings.
• Ideal for audiences who find list reordering more intuitive than filling in a grid.
• Supports keyboard voting: use arrow keys to navigate, Space to add or remove, and Shift+Arrow to reorder.

Ballot paper

• Inspired by Australian, New Zealand, Irish, and Maltese paper ballots: ranking numbers (1, 2, 3...) appear in boxes next to each candidate name.
• Click a candidate name to assign the next ranking number, or type numbers directly in the boxes.
• A natural choice for audiences familiar with paper-based ballots for preferential voting.

Grid ballot

Drag and drop

Ballot paper

January 2026

Improvements to Tools / Google Classroom & Forms

• Direct import: Upload your Google Forms response file directly—no reformatting required. RCV123 automatically detects the Google Forms format and imports your votes.
• Multi-contest support: If your Google Form contains multiple ranking questions, RCV123 will create a separate contest for each one and calculate results independently.
• Use Edit ballot after importing to change the ballot name, contest names, number of winners and other settings.

Edit ballot

• Make changes to your ballot even after voting has begun:
  • Full editing until the first vote is cast—change candidate names, contest settings, and number of winners.
  • Limited editing after votes are cast—fix typos, exclude candidates who have withdrawn, and change the number of winners.
• Use Edit ballot options to change voter verification, voting schedule, and results access settings.
• Find both commands from the Preview ballot page or from your Dashboard in the Ballot actions menu.

Customize results

• Ballot owners can now customize results directly from the results page—even after voting has closed.
• The Customize results tab is only visible to the ballot owner. Use it to:
  • Exclude candidates who have withdrawn or been disqualified
  • Change the number of winners for the contest
• When you exclude a candidate, their rankings are ignored and each voter's next choice counts instead.
• Results are recalculated immediately when you save your changes, and all viewers will see the updated results.

December 2025

Import and export ballot designs

• Share ballot designs with other RCV123 users or reuse your own designs across multiple elections.
• Export ballot: From the Dashboard, open Ballot actions and select Export ballot to download your ballot design as a file.
• Import ballot: From the Tools menu, select Import ballot to create a new ballot from an exported design file.
• Exported ballots files include ballot name and description, contests and candidates—but not votes or voting rules.

November 2025

Labs feature: Create ballots in 24 different languages!

• RCV123 now supports creating ballots in 24 languages.
• When you create a ballot in a specific language, the entire voting experience is conducted in that language—all buttons, instructions, messages, and results pages appear in the selected language.
• This is a Labs feature—translations have not been professionally reviewed. If you see a translation error, please email us at info@rcv123.org to provide your feedback.

Help us serve all voters

If you or your organization have expertise in making voting systems work for all voters—including those who do not speak English or have vision or motor skills impairments—we would love to work with you. Please email us at info@rcv123.org to get in touch.

A Spanish ballot with keyboard voting active, showing the blue focus indicator and keyboard instructions.

October 2025

New logged-in home screen

Available with a free RCV123 account

• A new  home icon now appears on the blue navigation bar, guiding you to a menu-free launchpad for RCV123.
• The home screen features cards providing direct access to important RCV123 features (the number of cards shown adapts to your screen size).
• Click the home icon at any time to return to this streamlined launchpad from anywhere in RCV123.

Keyboard voting support

• RCV123 ballots now support voting without using a mouse:
  • Arrow key navigation: Press any arrow key to start navigating between candidates (rows) and rankings (columns)
  • Spacebar voting: Press Spacebar to cast or remove votes on the focused candidate
  • Context-sensitive instructions: The ballot displays dynamic instructions that update based on your current state, guiding you through the keyboard voting process
  • Visual focus indicators: A clear blue outline shows your current position when navigating with the keyboard
  • Keyboard shortcuts: Press Esc to reset your votes or Enter to submit your ballot

The new home screen provides quick access to all RCV123 features.

Streamlined ballot setup

• Creating ballots is now faster and easier! The new setup flow gets you started immediately with your ballot details—name, candidates, and contests.
• Ballot options now come after you design your ballot, making the workflow more intuitive.

Improved voter verification methods

• Custom voter codes (formerly "uploaded codes"): Type or paste codes directly—no file upload required.
• Email verification: Type or paste email addresses directly—no file upload required.
• Ballot links page improvements:
  • Copy all codes button for custom codes—easily copy your entire list to distribute to voters
  • Copy all email addresses button for email verification
  • Copy all links button for unique voting links
  • Copy all codes button for unique voting codes (system-generated)
  • Custom codes and email addresses are now displayed alongside voting links for easier election administration

More flexibility with Edit ballot options

• You can now update ballot options and schedule until voting starts, and many options even after voting begins:
  • Change your voter verification method until the first vote is cast
  • Rename your ballot or update its description anytime
  • Modify voter codes or email lists even after voting starts
  • All voter verification options can be changed dynamically—instantly see the controls for each method when you select it

New Tools menu - Ranked choice voting calculator

• Use RCV123 as a ranked choice voting calculator when you collect votes using other methods. RCV calculator and Google Classroom & Forms now have their own dedicated menu.

August 2025

RCVis Visualization Partnership

• We are partnering with RCVis, a provider of RCV results visualizations for public election agencies and media, to provide new visualizations for any RCV123 ballot results.
  • Choose from six different visualization types: Interactive Bar Chart (native), Animated Bar Chart, Static Bar Chart, Sankey Diagram, Summary Table, Table by Round, and Path to Victory.
  • Visualizations are available for all RCV123 elections and can be accessed via direct URL links for easy sharing.
  • The Sankey diagram is particularly useful for understanding vote flows between elimination rounds.

Choose from multiple visualization types powered by RCVis to display your RCV election results.

July 2025

New dashboard design with Ballot actions

• Ballot actions allows direct access to more features from the Dashboard, such as Edit ballot options, Print ballot, and Delete ballot.
  • Voting may be Open, Closed, or Reopened from Ballot actions.
  • Stay tuned for additional Ballot actions in the near future.
  • Voting method is the new term for Ballot type.
  • The new Created column shows when each ballot was created. Click on the column header to sort by creation date.
  • Voting status replaces the Open date and Close date columns.Open and close dates are still available on the Preview screen and may be edited in Edit ballot options.
  • Open and close dates are still available on the Preview screen and may be edited in Edit ballot options.

The redesigned dashboard features new Ballot actions for easier election management.

June 2025

New ballot design

• The ballot design has been updated to be more compact and modern to ensure a better mobile voting experience.The candidate ranking list has been moved below the ballot to allow more space for candidate names. Long candidate names will wrap and will never be truncated.

The new ballot design is more compact and mobile-friendly while preventing candidate name clipping.

Preview ballot

• A ballot may now be previewed at any time, even if voting hasn't opened or if it has closed.
  • Preview ballots can be reached from the Links page or from the Dashboard.
  • If the ballot has multiple contests, they will all show up together.

Printable ballots

• You can now print paper ballots for any election. From the Preview ballot page, press the Print ballot buttonto open your browser's print dialog.
  • If the ballot has multiple contests, they will all be included in the printout. Contests will not be split across page breaks.
  • If your ballot uses randomized candidate order, the candidates will be in a different order each time the ballot is printed.
  • Each printed ballot will contain voting instructions appropriate for paper ballots.

Ability to require full rankings

• When configuring your ballot, you will see a new advanced option: Require full rankings.This option lets you require voters to use all available rankings. Complete rankings are required in some public elections, such as Australian federal elections.

Direct support for Google Sheets when uploading votes

• The Spreadsheet Upload and Google Forms and Classroom
pages now support Google Sheets links directly. Downloading as Excel is no longer required.
• A sample spreadsheet is now provided to help you get started.

New ballot previews let you see a ballot and its settings, or just the ballot for printing purposes.

Google Sheets links can now be used directly for spreadsheet uploads.

May 2025

Better results display

• New icons and text illustrate what happened in each round of voting.Winners are marked with in the round they are elected. Eliminated candidates are marked "eliminated" and "lost tie-breaker" indicates which candidate lost a tie-breaker round.
• In multi-winner elections, the winning candidates are now sorted in the order in which they were elected.In the round after a candidate is elected, their surplus votes are transferred and displayed as hashed in the subsequent round. The surplus votes of last candidate elected are not transferred because the election has ended. For display fairness, the surplus votes of this candidate will be reverse-hashed so the candidate does not appear to have received more votes than winners who were elected in earlier rounds.
• If voting is not closed, results are clearly marked as "Preliminary"
• New tooltips on the color bars help you understand exactly what happened in each round, with precise vote counts.
• Information about the election close date (when it closed or when it is scheduled to close) is now displayed.
• If the election has no scheduled close date, a Close voting button on the results page allows theadministrator to close voting without visiting the Dashboard

Multi-winner election results now show the order candidates were elected.

Descriptions can be added to every ballot page

• Contest description:You may optionally enter text which will appear on the ballot page for each specific ballot contest.
  • You may use this text to clarify the purpose of the contest or to provide information voters may consider while voting.
• Ballot description:Ballots with more than one contest may have an overall ballot description to be displayed on every page of the ballot.

International sample ballots

• New Sample ballots were added for RCV elections outside of the United States, such as Australia, Ireland, and Malta.