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Question: Your simulator did not allow me to choose the ranking of candidates within a party when they got differing numbers of votes. I had 3 parties, two of them with 3 candidates and 1 of them with only 1 candidate. Specifically I identified party 1 as the Blue Red party with 48000 voters who would vote only for their candidates and in a specified order, first choice, second choice and third choice. That was easily accomplished.
The second Party was the Pale Pink party, with 42000 voters, who also voted the strict party line. The complication arose with the third Party, The Green Party, with 10,000 stalwart voters, who could only afford to field one candidate. Their supporters would all chose that candidate first, but would also choose second, third and fourth choices from the Pale Pink party, never from the Blue Red party. I was unable to show this mix of voter choices for each of the Pale Pink candidates. How would I show, for instance that candidate 4 ( top of the Pale Pink list) received 42000 first choice votes and, say 5000 second choice votes and 5000 third choice ( from the Green people) and that Candidate 5 ( Number 2 of the Pale Pinks) received say 45000 second place votes ( 3000 from the Greens) plus 3000 third place votes also from the Greens. Candidate 6, (3rd in the Pale Pinks), received 2000 second place votes from the Greens, 42000 third choice votes from the Pale Pinks, plus 2000 third place from the Greens plus 10000 4th choice also from the Greens.
I appear to be unable to find any way of putting the number I wanted into the boxes; it insisted on showing number 1 or 2 or 3 whether or not that was what I wanted to record. Unless you can tell me how to record these various choice level votes for each candidate I doubt if your simulator can accurately parallel the range of votes which are likely to be found on the ballots and where second choice and third choice votes are likely to be determinants in a riding with say 3 or more parties, where several of the parties only run one candidate and their adherents vote second third and perhaps fourth choices to one of the two mainstream parties.
Answer: In your example there are 4 distinct groupings of "Green" party supporters, of sizes 3000, 2000, 3000, and 2000, respectively. Each grouping has Candidate 7 as a first choice, but has different second, third, and fourth choices.
The first grouping of 3000 prefers candidates in this order: candidate 7, candidate 4, candidate 5, and candidate 6.
2000 voters vote as follows: candidate 7, candidate 4, candidate 6.
3000 voters vote as follows: candidate 7, candidate 5, candidate 4, candidate 6.
2000 voters vote as follows: candidate 7, candidate 6, candidate 4.
(Note that it is impossible for 10000 Green voters to have a 4th preference of candidate 6, as you stated in your email, since 4000 of these voters have already chosen candidate 6 as a 2nd or 3rd choice).
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