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Our elections, drawn on a quantum computer

Orbit, our experimental model, has drawn 3 elections on 156-qubit IBM chips (marrakesh, fez). One measurement of the circuit gives one complete election.

6 draws, 196,608 elections, 269 seconds of machine time. In the latest draw of each election, after readout-error correction, the chip lands 0.6 to 3.1 points from the exact calculation.

Every draw

ElectionMachine and dateElections drawnQubits per circuitMachine timeMajority according to the chipGap to the exact calculation
Quebec 2026 ibm_marrakesh · October 4, 2026 16,384 60 28 s Parti Quebecois 34% 8.0 pt
Quebec 2026 ibm_fez · October 4, 2026 16,384 60 28 s Parti Quebecois 37% 5.1 pt
Quebec 2026 ibm_fez · October 5, 2026 65,536 60 80 s Parti Quebecois 34% 3.4 pt
Quebec 2026 ibm_fez (twirling) · October 5, 2026 65,536 60 84 s Parti Quebecois 34% 3.1 pt
U.S. Senate 2026 ibm_marrakesh · November 1, 2026 16,384 36 7 s Democrat 60% 0.6 pt
U.S. House 2026 ibm_marrakesh · November 1, 2026 16,384 60 42 s Democrat 86% 1.4 pt

The gap to the exact calculation is the total variation between the seat distribution drawn by the chip (after readout-error correction) and the one Orbit computes on an ordinary computer: the share of elections that would have to move for the two to match.

How an election becomes a circuit

Orbit groups its scenarios into 256 climates: a wave for one party, a comeback for the other, the status quo and everything in between. For each climate it computes each party’s exact chance in every race.

Each contested race becomes a qubit (two when three or more parties are in play), rotated so that measuring it returns each party with exactly that chance. Races that are settled in advance skip the machine.

The chip measures the circuit and each qubit lands on a party: that gives a complete map. We repeat the measurement, count the seats and compare with the exact calculation.

How Orbit works

Quebec’s entangled election

In Quebec, we also linked ridings to one another on the chip, from 10 to 90 ridings, on two machines. The details are on the Quebec Labs page.

See the entangled election

What it does not prove

The chip does not make the forecast more accurate. Orbit computes the same distribution exactly without it; the draw measures what a real machine can already do, noise included.

Today’s chips make mistakes: a qubit is sometimes misread, an operation is imperfect. We publish the raw draw next to the corrected one, along with the IBM job IDs.

Orbit is still experimental. It beat our main forecast in Quebec in 2026, in a single election; its American settings have not been tested against past elections.

The draw in detail