quota must be set such that any candidate who receives that many votes is elected. The quota, if used, must be set at a level where no more candidates can reach quota than there are seats to be filled. It cannot be so small that more candidates can be elected than the number of open seats, but the smaller it is, the fairer the result. There are several ways to specify quotas. The Droop quota is the one most commonly used. It is generally considered to be the absolute lowest number that elects the correct number of candidates to fill the available seats, at least based on the original number of votes cast. The Droop quota is given by the floor function formula: The Droop quota is an extension of the majoritarian principle of requiring a 50% + 1 majority in single-winner elections under instant-runoff voting. Using Droop means 25% plus 1 is the quota in a three-seat contest because no more than three people can each have 25% of the vote + 1; using Droop means 10% of the vote + 1 is the quota in a nine-seat district because no more than nine people can each have 10% of the vote + 1, and so on. Droop being relatively low means that the largest party, if it has the majority of votes, is likely to take the majority of the seats in a district. The Hare quota was used in the original proposals by Thomas Hare. It is larger than the Droop and sometimes ensures greater representation to less-popular parties within a district. But also, being larger than Droop, Hare presents more of an obstacle to small parties that hope to take just one seat. Being smaller than Hare, the Droop quota may give a seat to a small party that does not have the votes to take a seat under Hare. STV minimizes wasted votesvotes cast for a candidate with no chance of winning. Votes cast for a winning candidate are sometimes transferred to the voter's next choice candidate, who is also preferred by the voter. (Any vote is only used once but may be allocated to different candidates along the way until it finds its final place.) Most first-count votes cast for a candidate who wins in the end is never transferred – just the surplus votes are transferred (unless all seats are already filled). Alternate