This is how to carry out open voting and receive named results
1. Booking the feature
To activate the "Open Voting" feature for your election project, log in to the POLYAS Online Election Manager and open your voting project. Now click on the "Features" tab and book Open Voting. If the booking was successful, the "Feature added to shopping cart" note will appear at the bottom of the feature description. Now you can close the feature description.
During a Live Voting, you can use the POLYAS Live Voting Cockpit to decide whether to conduct each voting secretly or openly. The link to the Live Voting Cockpit can be found in the project overview in POLYAS Online Voting Manager.
If you use the feature with Online Voting, the entire election will be open.
Caution: Voters should be informed well in advance about whether a Live Voting is conducted openly or secretly. If you conduct a voting, inform voters in advance that the entire election will be conducted openly. A notice to this effect is displayed during open voting.
2. The difference between secret and open voting
In contrast to secret ballots, the completed ballot papers are not separated from the voter ID during counting. With open voting, the IDs and the votes cast are a package and are transparent in the results. As the organizer, you can decide in advance which voter attribute to define as the ID. For example, you can also define a membership number as an ID. Most eligible voters are unable to use this number to identify who cast any particular vote, but you, as the organizer, would be able to infer the identity of any specific person from the register of voters.
In contrast, IDs are deleted for the counting of secret votes and only the votes cast are collected into a result. This means that not even POLYAS is able to infer the voting behavior of individuals.
3. Holding an open vote in the Live Voting Cockpit
When you start the voting in the POLYAS Live Voting Cockpit, a confirmation window is displayed. Here you can choose whether the vote conducted is
- open / by roll-call
- or secret
If you choose open voting, your voters will see a notice above their ballot paper, which again informs them that the vote is open and that their vote can be linked to their person.
At the end of each voting, the POLYAS Online Voting Manager provides the results of this vote as a download. The downloaded Excel file with the results not only lists the votes per option, but also the associated IDs.
Notification for eligible voters during live voting.
4. Combination with the “Advanced result configuration in the Live Voting Cockpit” feature
By combining the feature with the advanced result configuration, you can display your open votes or votes by name in the result display.
In the “Results” section, click on the person icon in the top right-hand corner to enable votes by name to be displayed in the results. You can also define which voter attribute(s) are displayed. A maximum of three attributes can be shown. This is also where you can choose between all the attributes that you’ve stored in your register of voters.
Defining which voter attribute(s) will be displayed in the results.
Next to the “Overall result”, you’ll find different icons that allow you to choose between different result displays:
We also offer doughnut charts for displaying results if you additionally use the “Evaluation groups” feature and filter your results accordingly. After you’ve finished configuring your display of results, you can share them with your voters by using the “Show results” function in the bottom right-hand corner.
This allows your voters to see the people, parliamentary groups or groups who voted for the corresponding voting option below the table or the bar chart.
Please note: this result display cannot be used for weighted results.
View your open votes or votes by name in the result display.
