From start to finish, you can plan and launch your online election or survey (which we generically call a Poll) in 10 easy steps. You may recognize these steps from our How It Works page, but here, we have added links to some of the details you’ll need to be successful your first time.
Please note that if you have a Gold or Platinum subscription, you can ask BallotBox staff to create and launch your poll for you.
Step 1. You or another Admin creates a poll.
Once you create your account (or if you already have an account, you log into your Admin account), you will see a blue button that says Create a new poll. Click it, give your new poll a name, and press the Create button. (You can change the name later, if you need to.) You will now see all of the tabs and controls that let you customize this poll so that it will accomplish your goals. If you’d like to add another Admin from your organization to help you, please see this article.
Step 2. Pick at least two Officers.
Your Officers are the people who review the ballot questionnaire to help you look for any mistakes. Their passwords also protect the anonymity of the votes and the integrity of the results. Read more about adding officers to your poll.
Step 3. Design your ballot.
Click on the Questions tab of your poll, and create your questionnaire. We recommend that you read this article about the powerful features of our ballot editor.
Step 4. Load your voter list.
Your voters are loaded into BallotBox by name and email address. You may also set certain Voter Settings (Platinum only) or assign Voter Groups (Gold or Platinum only). Once those settings are the way you want them, you can import a complete voters list or add voters one at a time.
Step 5. Configure your online poll.
Click on the Settings tab of your poll. Here you can change your poll’s title, and set when its online voting period will start and end. You can also tell BallotBox that you do not want to show this poll on your organization’s BallotBox home page (which is visible to the public, without requiring any login).
Step 6. Deploy your poll for review.
When you’re ready, you will click the Deploy Poll for Review button on the poll’s Summary tab. BallotBox will then emails your Officer to ask them to review and approve the ballot. That review and feedback process is described in more detail here.
Step 7. Your poll launches.
After your Officers approve the ballot (or after you manually launch the poll even though it was not approved), BallotBox will send each of your voters an emailed invitation to vote at the poll’s scheduled start time.
In addition, you can send reminder emails to encourage participation, and voters can visit your organization’s BallotBox home page to request a ballot link at any time.
Step 8. Your voters vote.
Each of your voters will click a button in the email from BallotBox, and will be taken directly to your ballot. For long ballots, voters have the option to save a draft and come back later to finish it.
Step 9. BallotBox records the votes.
BallotBox protects each cast ballot with strong encryption. No one, not even BallotBox employees, can see how anyone voted (unless you specify that you need a question to be non-anonymous.) BallotBox also emails a confirmation to each voter.
While the voters are coming in, you and your other Admins can log into BallotBox to check on the progress of the poll. Your Officers for that poll can, too.
Step 10. You unlock your results.
The moment your poll closes, a quorum of your Officers can get together to enter their passwords into BallotBox. The results are instantly available. The process of unlocking the poll is discussed here.