RCV Lab Create, run, and visualize ranked-choice elections

rcv-lab Terms of Service

Last updated: May 18, 2026 Version: Initial release (soft launch)

Plain-language summary

rcv-lab is a free, public-benefit platform for running ranked-choice elections, polls, and group decisions. It's operated by the Kaphan Foundation, a Washington-state private foundation. We don't sell user data, we don't charge for the service, and we don't run ads. We do our best to make the tabulation correct and the platform reliable, but rcv-lab is provided "as-is" without warranties, and you use it at your own risk. rcv-lab is not a certified voting system and should not be used as the system of record for binding government elections. By using rcv-lab, you agree to the terms below.

If you have questions, contact us at info@rcv-lab.org.

1. Acceptance of these Terms

These Terms of Service (the "Terms") govern your use of rcv-lab and its websites, applications, APIs, integrations (including Discord and other social-platform integrations), Model Context Protocol (MCP) server, and any related tools or services (collectively, the "Service"). The Service is operated by the Kaphan Foundation, a Washington nonstock corporation and an IRS §501(c)(3) private foundation ("we," "us," "Kaphan Foundation," or "rcv-lab").

By accessing or using the Service, you agree to these Terms. If you are using the Service on behalf of an organization (a political party, advocacy group, association, club, employer, or other entity), you represent that you have authority to bind that organization, and "you" refers to both you personally and the organization.

If you do not agree to these Terms, do not use the Service.

We may update these Terms from time to time. Material changes will be posted here with a revised date. Continued use of the Service after changes are posted constitutes acceptance of the revised Terms.

2. What rcv-lab is (and isn't)

rcv-lab is an online platform for designing, running, and tabulating ranked-choice elections, polls, and group decisions. It supports a range of methods and features, which currently include single-winner instant-runoff voting (IRV), multi-winner single transferable vote (STV) using Meek's method or the Weighted Inclusive Gregory Method (WIGM), equal-rank ballots, collaborative write-in candidates, voter receipts and verification, programmatic access via API and MCP server, and integrations with platforms such as Discord. Available methods and features may change over time as the Service evolves.

rcv-lab is not a certified voting system. No internet-connected service can meet the certification requirements that apply to binding government elections in most U.S. jurisdictions. rcv-lab should not be used as the system of record for any binding governmental election. rcv-lab may be appropriate for:

  • Internal decisions of private organizations (parties, unions, associations, clubs, HOAs, cooperatives, faculty bodies, etc.), including the selection of nominees who may later appear on official government ballots;
  • Straw polls, advocacy polls, and demonstration elections;
  • Educational and research use;
  • Any other use where a binding, legally-certified result is not required.

You are responsible for determining whether rcv-lab is appropriate for your use case.

3. Soft-launch / beta status

rcv-lab is currently in a pre-release, soft-launch phase. Features may change without notice; tabulation behavior may be updated as algorithms are refined; ballots, accounts, or data may be reset; and uptime is not guaranteed. We will use reasonable efforts to preserve in-progress ballots and to give notice of significant changes, but we make no commitments about availability or data retention during this period.

4. Eligibility and accounts

To create an account on rcv-lab, you must be at least 13 years old (or the age of digital consent in your country of residence, if higher). Voters participating in a ballot generally do not need an account; the ballot creator decides who can vote and how voters are invited.

You can sign up either with email and password or with Google sign-in. If you sign up with email and password, we collect your email address. If you sign up with Google, we receive your email address and, depending on your Google account settings, your name from Google. You are responsible for keeping your credentials secure and for activity that happens through your account. Notify us promptly if you believe your account has been compromised.

5. Voter receipts and verification

rcv-lab can issue voters a cryptographic receipt that lets them verify that their ballot was recorded as cast. Voter receipts are an important integrity feature, but you should understand:

  • Confidentiality. A receipt corresponds to a specific ballot. Combined with access to the public verification table for a given election, a receipt can be used to look up the rankings recorded on that ballot. If ballot secrecy matters for your use case, voters should keep their receipts confidential.
  • Loss. We will not reissue a lost receipt. The Service is deliberately designed so that only the voter holds the receipt for their ballot — refusing to recover it preserves the verification property and prevents administrators from re-deriving any voter's receipt.
  • Limits. Receipts allow voters to verify that their own ballot was recorded; they are not a guarantee against every conceivable failure mode of the platform.

6. Programmatic access (API and MCP)

rcv-lab provides programmatic access through its API and through a Model Context Protocol (MCP) server that lets AI agents act on behalf of users. If you authorize an AI agent to use rcv-lab, the agent obtains credentials through a localhost authorization flow and acts under your account; see the Privacy Policy for technical details.

If you authorize an agent (whether software you wrote, a third-party tool, or an AI assistant) to use rcv-lab on your behalf, you are responsible for what that agent does. Actions taken by your agent are treated as your actions for purposes of these Terms.

Programmatic access is subject to reasonable rate limits and acceptable-use rules. We may suspend or revoke API or MCP access that we reasonably believe is abusive, that imposes disproportionate load, or that is being used to circumvent these Terms.

You may not use the API, MCP server, or any other access to scrape rcv-lab data for the purpose of training competing voting-platform AI models, or to build a competing service from rcv-lab's outputs.

7. Write-in candidates and user-generated content

rcv-lab supports collaborative write-in candidates and other user-generated content. If you submit a write-in name, ballot title, candidate description, or any other content to the Service, you represent that you have the right to do so and that the content does not violate these Terms or applicable law.

When a voter submits a write-in candidate during voting, that candidate name becomes visible to other voters of the same ballot and may appear in published results. You are responsible for the write-in names you submit, and ballot creators are responsible for moderating write-ins on ballots they administer.

If a person believes that a write-in or other user-generated content on rcv-lab is defamatory, infringes their rights, or otherwise should not appear, they may contact us at info@rcv-lab.org with a description of the content and the basis for the objection. We will review such requests in good faith and may remove content at our discretion.

You grant Kaphan Foundation a worldwide, royalty-free, non-exclusive license to host, display, transmit, and process the content you submit, solely as necessary to operate and improve the Service. You retain ownership of your content.

8. Acceptable use

You agree not to:

  • Use rcv-lab as the system of record for a binding government election in any jurisdiction that requires a certified voting system;
  • Misrepresent the entity or election for which you are using rcv-lab;
  • Use rcv-lab to violate any applicable law, or to harass, defame, threaten, or impersonate any person;
  • Submit content that is unlawful, infringing, malicious, or designed to interfere with other users' use of the Service;
  • Attempt to compromise the security, integrity, or availability of the Service (including by probing, scanning, or attacking the platform without prior written authorization for coordinated security research);
  • Reverse-engineer, decompile, or disassemble the Service, except to the extent this restriction is prohibited by law or by the license of an open-source component;
  • Use automated means to access the Service in a way that imposes a disproportionate load;
  • Use rcv-lab to send unsolicited bulk communications, spam, or commercial solicitations;
  • Resell or commercially redistribute access to the Service without our written permission.

We may investigate suspected violations and cooperate with law enforcement where appropriate. We may suspend or terminate access for violations.

9. Election integrity and disputes about results

rcv-lab uses deterministic tabulation algorithms (Meek's method, WIGM, IRV, and similar). The Service incorporates two tabulation engines — an original rcv-lab implementation in TypeScript, and an integration with the upstream RCTab tool. Administrators can run a contest through either engine, or through both, to compare results. Tabulation results produced by the Service are final unless you can demonstrate, with a reproducible test case, that the Service produced an incorrect result due to a software defect. If you believe a result is incorrect, please contact us at info@rcv-lab.org with the ballot ID and a description of the suspected issue.

For transparency, portions of rcv-lab's tabulation logic are validated against reference implementations and published test cases. We do not warrant that the Service is free of defects, but we take correctness seriously and will investigate credible reports.

10. Privacy

Your use of the Service is governed by our Privacy Policy, which describes what information we collect, how we use it, and the rights you have over it. By using the Service, you agree to the Privacy Policy.

11. Intellectual property

The rcv-lab platform — including its software, design, and trademarks — is the property of Kaphan Foundation, except for third-party components used under their respective licenses. rcv-lab incorporates and integrates with open-source software, including:

  • An original rcv-lab tabulation engine, developed in TypeScript, supporting equal-rank ballots, Meek's method, WIGM, and related variants;
  • The upstream RCTab tabulation tool (BSD-licensed, developed by Bright Spots and the Ranked Choice Voting Resource Center), wrapped as a parallel tabulation engine for cross-validation;
  • Additional third-party libraries used under their respective licenses.

You retain ownership of the content you submit, subject to the license granted in Section 7.

12. Third-party services and integrations

rcv-lab integrates with third-party services such as Discord, Google Cloud, and others. Those services have their own terms and privacy policies; we are not responsible for their practices. If you connect an rcv-lab account to a third-party service, you authorize rcv-lab to exchange information with that service as needed to provide the integration.

13. Termination

You may stop using the Service at any time. You may request deletion of your account by emailing info@rcv-lab.org.

We may suspend or terminate your access to the Service if we reasonably believe you have violated these Terms, if required by law, or if continued access would create a significant risk to the Service or other users. Where reasonably practical, we will give notice before terminating active ballots that are mid-vote.

Sections that by their nature should survive termination (intellectual property, disclaimers, limitations of liability, governing law) will survive.

14. Disclaimer of warranties

The Service is provided "as is" and "as available," without warranties of any kind, express or implied. To the fullest extent permitted by law, Kaphan Foundation disclaims all warranties, including warranties of merchantability, fitness for a particular purpose, non-infringement, accuracy, and uninterrupted or error-free operation. We do not warrant that the Service will meet your requirements, that defects will be corrected, or that the Service will be secure against every form of attack.

You acknowledge that rcv-lab is provided free of charge in the public interest, and that the disclaimers and limitations in these Terms reflect a fair allocation of risk in light of that fact.

15. Limitation of liability

To the fullest extent permitted by law, Kaphan Foundation and its officers, directors, employees, and agents will not be liable for any indirect, incidental, special, consequential, exemplary, or punitive damages, or for any loss of data, results, opportunity, or goodwill, arising out of or related to your use of the Service, even if we have been advised of the possibility of such damages.

Our total liability for any direct damages arising out of or related to the Service will not exceed one hundred U.S. dollars (US$100). Because the Service is provided free of charge, you acknowledge that this is a reasonable allocation of risk.

Some jurisdictions do not allow certain limitations of liability; in those jurisdictions our liability is limited to the maximum extent permitted by law.

16. Indemnification

You agree to indemnify and hold Kaphan Foundation harmless from claims, losses, and expenses (including reasonable attorneys' fees) arising out of (a) your use of the Service, (b) your violation of these Terms, or (c) content you submit to the Service.

17. Governing law and disputes

These Terms are governed by the laws of the State of Washington, without regard to its conflict-of-laws principles. Any dispute arising out of or related to the Service or these Terms will be resolved exclusively in the state or federal courts located in King County, Washington, and you consent to personal jurisdiction in those courts.

Before filing a lawsuit, the parties agree to attempt in good faith to resolve the dispute by direct discussion for at least thirty (30) days.

18. Miscellaneous

These Terms, together with the Privacy Policy, are the entire agreement between you and Kaphan Foundation regarding the Service. If any provision is found unenforceable, the remaining provisions remain in effect. Our failure to enforce a provision is not a waiver. You may not assign these Terms; we may assign them to a successor organization that continues to operate rcv-lab consistently with its public-benefit mission. Section headings are for convenience only.

19. Contact

Kaphan Foundation
P. O. Box 18801
Seattle, WA 98118
info@rcv-lab.org (general inquiries)
privacy@rcv-lab.org (privacy requests)