An option for multiple answer polls to tally percentages of voters

[David N.]

When creating a multiple answer poll, the poll tallies the percentage of votes. I wish it would tally the percentage of voters instead. 

For example in the results below, 53 voters out of 69 have voted for the 2nd answer, I would like to see 76.81% (of voters), and not 22.94% (of votes):

[Morrigan]

I don’t see how that would work.

It sounds like if one person votes for option 1 and 2 that it would show 100% on both when really it’s a fifty percent for both options as they chose both equally.

A multi-answer poll is intended to allow users to choose more then one option for a majority but with a few possibilities being their choice. The way you are asking for it to be done would be more that each answer is its own 100% vote? Which isn’t how a poll would/should work. Each answer is weighted based on the number of votes it has received. 

[David N.]

1 hour ago, Morrigan said:

It sounds like if one person votes for option 1 and 2 that it would show 100% on both when really it’s a fifty percent for both options as they chose both equally.

Yes, exactly. It's a fifty percent for both options if you count the votes, but it's 100% on both if you count the voters. I want to count the voters. 

Which ice cream flavors do you like? Chocolate or Vanilla? 

If 10 persons answer and:

• 5 of them answer only Chocolate,
• 5 of them answer both Chocolate and Vanilla,

Then I want the poll results to reflect that: 

• 100% of voters picked Chocolate,
• 50% of voters picked Vanilla. 

[Morrigan]

That’s my point.

That’s a survey, not a poll.

Polls are best of X. Surveys take into account amount of voters and what they choose even if there is more than one.

[David N.]

Call it what you want, and then maybe I want a survey and not a polll. 

In my example where 10 out of 10 voters vote "Chocolate" and 5 out of 10 voters vote "Vanilla", what's the point in getting a result that 66.6% of votes are "Chocolate"? I have no interest in that number. If you do, great, only I'm making here a feature suggestion that I think I should have at least the option of counting the percentage of voters, not votes. 

Out of curiosity, can you give me a concrete example of when you would be interested in getting that 66.6% value? What does it represent?

[Morrigan]

When I start a poll that’s exactly the result I’m looking for. I’ve never wanted/needed the statistic that you are looking for/wanting and I feel it’s skewed anyways.

If I run a poll and about ice cream and ask about the three traditional flavors and ask what’s your favorite, I’m looking for the overall favorite. Just because a few people have 2 favorites doesn’t mean that chocolate isn’t the overall winner of being the favorite.

Sure, in your example chocolate still “wins” but the percentage makes a difference. You can’t put two 100% totals in a pie (or a 50 and 100). That’s two separate pies which essentially is two separate questions:

Do you like chocolate (yes)

Do you like Vanilla (yes)

Those separate questions would be the vote you are looking for as you’re asking them if they simply like it and want a single percentage for each option.

I can sort of understand the “why” of what you’re trying to get but again, it’s not really feasible and I think would overall confuse people. “Why is this 150% instead of 100%?”

[David N.]

Ok so you made your point that you don't agree, but this is my feature suggestion. 😃 Maybe keep the current way of tallying the percentages and make my suggestion an option that you are free to select or not. 

To me it's more useful to know that 100% of voters voted for chocolate, than to know that 66% of the votes casted were for chocolate. I have never seen any poll where each voter can select multiple answers tally percentages like that, but I would love to see an example if you can share one?

In the example I shared in my original post, the poll was something like this: 

What you use Invision Community for? 

• A forum
• A blog
• An eCommerce platform 
• A gallery
• A calendar

... so once the votes are tallied, I want to see something like this: 

• A forum [ 78% ] 
• A blog [ 42% ]
• An eCommerce platform [ 53% ]
• A gallery [ 21% ]
• A calendar [ 38% ]

So that I can quickly conclude "78% of IC users are using it for a forum". 

Here are examples of such polls:

Edited April 24 by David N.

[Songstuff]

I’m with Dan on this. It would be useful if the person setting the poll could choose whether the percentages are relative to number of voters or relative to expressed preferences. I understand the case for counting answers but it makes little sense to hard code it one way or the other when a simple choice would allow it to be a poll or survey.