Capabilities
Our Essential and Business products come equipped with core voting features.
Vote Integrity
Trust the results of your votes and elections.
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One-to-One Voting
Ensure voters aren't able to cast multiple votes on the same ballot.
We are a one-to-one, closed voting provider. This means we help organizations run votes, on the condition that they can compile a list of who will be eligible to vote.
Our software does not support open voting.
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Voter Authentication
Authenticate your voters with personalized login credentials.
Our authentication methods are achieved by using unique voter data that you provide (e.g. email addresses, employee IDs) — or by letting our system generate randomized credentials.
This is how we ensure that only one vote can be cast per voter.
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Real-Time Turnout Analytics
Detailed reporting to better understand voting outcomes.
Our products give you a significant amount of insight that is helpful both during and after your vote
You’ll be able to answer standard questions like:
“Did this person vote?"
“What day did my voters vote?”
“What time were their votes cast?”With eBallot for Business, more granular and custom reports are available. Our most popular business reports involve looking at voting outcomes by:
- Region
- Department
- Title
- Position
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Ballot Testing & Quality Control
Create a trusted voting setup that's tailored to your needs.
If you're self-administering your online vote, all of our products give you the ability to test things out before going live. That way, you can correct any oversights and optimize the vote to your organization's requirements.
If you opt to get help from us, you can feel confident that your ballot is set up correctly and adheres to the needs of your organization.
Administrator Experience
Manage the voting process with ease.
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Voting Platform
Gain control over your voting events.
Regardless of the platform you choose, you'll benefit from the tools and settings you need to run a successful vote.
Depending on the needs of your organization, eBallot for Business supports vote management services.
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Modern User Interface
Create votes, quickly and easily.
No matter your level of technical ability, our products allow you quickly and easily build votes, hassle-free.
You will give your voters a simple, straightforward voting experience. They'll access ballots — on their own time — from their smartphone, computer, or tablet.
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Vote Management Services
Let our team of experts build, run, and manage your vote.
There's a lot involved with setting up and carrying out a vote. This responsibility carries even more weight when the outcome is of significant importance to your organization. Let our team take on some of the responsibility.
Why? Here are some reasons:
- We know the best way to set up your ballots
- We understand the most efficient ways to get your voters to vote
- We're a third party with no stake in the outcome of your vote or election
Vote Management is only available with eBallot for Business.
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Voter Upload Modules
Enter your voters' information into the system quickly and easily.
Our voter list upload modules let you manage the list of eligible voters, their details, and login information.
For example, you can:
- Upload your lists of eligible voters in bulk or individually
- Assign voters to the ballots you want them to vote on
- Add or deactivate voters as needed
Additionally, you're able to segment voters by department, geography, or any other categorization that's important to you - then assign them to their respective ballots.
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Vote Scheduling Options
Set ballots to open and close at a preferred date and time.
When do you want to begin accepting votes? When's the deadline?
Is voting open:
- The 1st of the month at 9:05am until the 31st at 5pm?
- Just today during lunch?
- At the annual meeting next week?
- Only this week (Monday through Friday)?
All eBallot products make it easy to schedule across multiple time zones.
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Email Platform Merge Fields
Write just one email to send unique, personalized emails to all of your voters with our built-in notification platform and email merge field tool.
When sending out your voter notifications through email, merge fields are a tool that “merge” in personalized, unique information so you don’t have to enter different usernames and passwords for each of your voters.
Instead, you can send hundreds or thousands of personalized emails simply by writing one email and placing in merge fields for unique information, such as:- First names
- Usernames
- Passwords
- One-click links
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Email Deliverability Reports
Were these voters made aware of the vote?
We offer a selection of effective methods to help you track not only if messages were delivered, but also to prevent non-delivery issues from happening in the first place.
Some options include:
Basic Deliverability Reporting
- Receive a list of messages that have “bounced” - ones that were never delivered to the recipient
Moderate Prevention
- Whitelist domains to prevent voter notification emails ending up in spam folders
- Create vote-specific email addresses (e.g. turn “Karen@yourdomain.com” into “Elections@yourdomain.com”)
Robust Prevention
- Modify DNS settings to allow our email service to send as your email address
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Sub-Administrator Access
Give additional users access to your account.
Is anyone helping you run your organization’s voting events? Is someone interested in how the voting software will be set up and managed?
We make it easy to share administrative duties or insights with your direct reports, bosses, and other colleagues. You can also restrict access to certain individuals. -
Access to Customer Experience Team
We offer various levels of customer experience, depending on your preferred level of support. This ranges from self-guided online resources and email support - all the way up to enterprise-level consulting.
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Extended Administrator Support
An extended scope of tailored support.
We can accommodate an array of requests, such as:
- Extended support, outside of normal business hours
- On-site management and vote finalization
For requests like these and others, we’re happy to develop a custom support plan.
Extended Administrator Support is only available for eBallot for Business.
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Self-Administered Trainings
Tailored onboarding services for new self-administrators.
If you choose to use eBallot for Business in a self-administered capacity, we offer onboarding to get your team trained up and using our software effectively.
Our experts will show your team how to create ballots, alert voters, and smoothly manage the entire voting process.Self-Administered Trainings is only available for eBallot for Business.
Voter Experience
Offer your voters a straightforward, pleasant experience.
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Voting Notifications
Alert and remind your voters about the upcoming vote.
Your voters need to understand how, when, and where to vote.
Our software comes equipped with the tools to send these instructions.Thanks to our merge field capabilities, personalizing hundreds or thousands of message at once is as simple as writing one email.
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Voter Notification Services
We'll make sure your voters have all the information.
At a bare minimum, your voters need to know how to vote.
We’ve had the pleasure of working with thousands of organizations to craft effective voter outreach campaigns, so we know what to say to your voters to minimize confusion and eliminate excessive back and forth.
For a number of reasons, this is generally best achieved through email notifications and reminders - though, sometimes it’s nice to receive something in printed form. (We offer post cards and notification mailer packets for those cases.)
That way, you can focus on what really matters - receiving the results and making key decisions to evolve your organization.
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Dedicated Voter Support
Your voters will appreciate the guidance.
For a variety of reasons (e.g. the size of an organization or the amount of voters), many organizations are unable to be responsible for voter support.
Even when detailed emails notifications are sent, we find that voters can still have questions along the lines of:- "Where do I need to go to vote?”
- “How can I login?”
- “Did my vote go through?”
Let us take care of these administrative tasks, according to your guidelines.
Your voters will feel supported, and knowing this, you'll be able to focus on other important things.Dedicated Voter Support is only available with eBallot for Business.
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One-Click Links
Provide voters with seamless, secure logins.
One-click links are secure, unique-to-the-voter links that bypass the traditional login page.
They're convenient because:
- In one fell swoop, your voters can click on a link and securely log into the voting system — no username and password required
- Vote integrity is retained because these links are built to function with our voter authentication mechanism.
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Candidate Profiles
Showcase headshots, resumes, biographies, and more.
Our candidate profiles make it easy to showcase your nominees in their best light.
They allow you to share relevant items — like resumes, images, and personal statements — to support all of the choices or candidates being considered. -
Vote Review
Double check your selections.
Vote Review prompts your voters to double check their vote selections or update their choice, prior to finalizing their vote.
This ensures voters don’t accidentally vote for something they didn’t mean to. -
Hybrid Paper and Digital Voting
Combine online and offline notification methods.
For hybrid elections, paper services are particularly useful for organizations that require paper notifications. They're also helpful if you're worried that digital messaging might be overlooked.
We offer printed ballots, postcards, and notification packets to your voters. We also offer tabulation services for mail-in ballots. This way, you can ensure votes that were cast by paper will be counted correctly and there is no question of foul play.
Learn more about Hybrid Paper and Digital Services here.
Hybrid Paper and Digital Voting is only available with eBallot for Business.
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Phone Voting
Allow “dial-in” votes.
Let your voters place their votes over the phone, with their keypad.
We've seen this help improve voter turnout, under certain circumstances. Particularly among voters who are less confident with a smartphone and more comfortable with a key-in method of voting.
Phone Voting is only available for eBallot for Business.
Security
Ensure your organization’s security and peace of mind.
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Core Product Functionality
Our mission is to provide clients with the highest level of online voting software and services available.
eBallot products have key functionality built in to ensure you're running votes that meet organizational requirements and protect against voter fraud.
These include:
- Voter authentication mechanisms that ensure there's no double voting occurring
- Anonymity options to match your organization's auditability needs
- Vote management services that take significant weight off of vote administration responsibilities
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Data Storage & Backups
Your data will be safely stored with Amazon Web Services (AWS), our cloud-based, data storage partner.
Used by thousands of prominent organizations all over the world (NFL, Netflix, American Heart Association, and Formula One to name a few), AWS is considered best in class for their storage, maintenance, monitoring, and data purging technologies.
Our recovery procedures ensure that your data is accessible, even in the event of a disaster. Additionally, we’re happy to work with clients on an individual basis to meet individual data backup requirements. Visit our Security page for more information.
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Third-Party Scans
Routine assessments and certifications awarded by third parties are an integral protection mechanism for any digital business.
Thousands of eBallot customers are protected on a daily basis by these partners and practices. From SOC I + II compliance, to SSL domain encryption and various other audits - your organization will enjoy best in cybersecurity practices. Learn more on our Security page.
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GDPR
We follow standard GDPR guidelines, as mandated by the EU. Specifically, we adhere to the Privacy Shield Principles which apply to Swiss and EU resident data. For more details, contact us or visit Section 19 of our Terms of Use page.
Vote Customization
Not all votes are the same. And that's okay.
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Anonymity Options
Incorporate various levels of anonymity, without sacrificing the integrity of your vote.
Your anonymity needs will likely be determined by your organizational bylaws, legal requirements, or operational preference.
There are various methods of implementing anonymity settings, which should be based on your organizational needs. Not sure what you need? We can help point you in the right direction.
Sample anonymity setups include:
- Only the voters will know who or what they voted for
- Only your voting provider and/or auditor knows how voters voted
- Individual administrator restrictions during a live vote
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Weighted Voting
Enable certain voters to have more influence over voting outcomes.
Weighted voting is a voting setup where not all voters have the same amount of influence over its outcome. In cases like these, the votes of certain voters are given a different “weight”.
Common examples of who might be weighted more include:
- Individuals with a higher percentage of ownership shares
- People with more real estate square footage in a condo association
- Those with greater seniority at a company
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Single Sign On (SSO)
Create a voting portal inside of the tools you already use.
A Single Sign On (or SSO for short) helps you ensure that your voters have a pleasant experience casting their votes, without compromising the security or integrity of your voting event.
When placed on your site (or within an application), your voters will be able to seamlessly login and cast their vote from a single, familiar place.
Vote Management is only available with eBallot for Business. -
Preferential Voting
Allow voters to make multiple selections, in preferential order.
This concept is also referred to as “ranked choice” or “instant run-off” voting, where winning selections are ranked by their number of total votes.
For example, if you were running an election with this question:
“Rank candidates A, B, and C in order of preference”
Your results would be displayed like:
- Candidate A received 60 votes - 2nd place
- Candidate B received 10 votes - 3rd place
- Candidate C received 190 votes - 1st place
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Nominations
Run a preliminary vote prior to the main event.
Nominations are a stage where voters make their choices on the people or items that will enter into a subsequent main event.
Many times you may know who (or what) you’re voting on in the nominations round.
Here's an example of a nomination vote, where the items to be voted on are known:“Choose the candidate you want to nominate. This person voted on in the main event”
- Candidate A
- Candidate B
- Candidate C
But we also help organizations run open nomination votes, where voters are able to write-in their selection.
Here's an example of nomination write-in vote:
- Who (or what) should we vote on at the main event? Type out your answer.
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Question Filtering
Allow certain groups to vote only on certain questions.
Filtered questions allow only certain voters to have access to certain questions.
For example, you might have some questions that:
- All of your voters are eligible to vote on (like a President or bylaws change)
- Pertain to only certain groups of your voters (like electing representatives from specific regions)
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Parked Voting
Allow voters to return to their ballot and change their selections.
The Parked Voting option allows voters to return to their ballot at a later time, alter their selections, and re-cast their vote. The last vote cast will be the one voted toward the results.
Parked Voting is only available with eBallot for Business. -
Choice Shuffling
Present choices or candidates in a random order.
If Candidate or Choice A is always the first possible selection shown to each and every voter — this may encourage your voters to select them.
By randomly shuffling the way your choices or candidates appear to voters, you can prevent skewing of your results. This way, you can give equal opportunity to each choice or candidate being listed on your ballots.
For example:
Voter 1 might see this order:
- Choice A
- Choice B
- Choice C
Voter 2 might see this:
- Choice B
- Choice A
- Choice C
And Voter 3 might see this:
- Choice C
- Choice B
- Choice A
...and so on
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IP Restriction
Restrict access to the ballot from non-qualified locations.
Ensure only specific sets of IP addresses are able to vote according to your requirements.
IP Restriction is only available with eBallot for Business.
Auditing
Provide the weight behind voting outcomes.
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Vote Audit Reports
Stand behind the outcome of your vote.
What should you do if someone challenges the outcome of your finalized vote? Our vote audit report should be your first step.
Depending on your anonymity setup, you’ll be able to see:
- Who voted
- When they did
- What they voted on
If you're an eBallot for Business customer, you can also provide your organization with a Certified Results Report. Further, our Administrator Footprint Report shows who has interacted with the system, and when changes were made.
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Certified Results Report
A certification of results from a third party.
Our certified results report offers a high-level picture of how your vote played out - with clear charts and graphs of voting outcomes. It also serves as an official letter to confirm that an independent third-party has overseen the setup, management, and finalization of your voting event.
Offered as a part of our fully-managed vote services, we’ll confirm that your vote was correctly set up, managed, and that you can trust the results.
The Certified Results Report is only available for eBallot for Business.
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Administrator Fingerprint Report
Track the behavior of your administrators.
This report shows you each and every change that has been during your voting event.
It's useful when you're interested in how vote administrators have been interacting with the voting platform. Auditing-wise, it’s another way to prove there was no foul play during your vote and can be seen by any admin at anytime after your vote has closed.
The Administrator Fingerprint Report is only available with eBallot for Business. -
Data Retention
Access your data well beyond the life of an individual vote.
We'll store your voting and account-level data for on-demand access.
With
eBallot Essential, our data retention services last as long as you hold onto your subscription.Our Business platform allows you to retain voting and account-level data for much longer periods.
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Raw Data Export
Export your results to a spreadsheet.
Access the raw data from your ballots and voting events to create your own tailored reports now or in the future. These include everything our system tracks about voters and their voting behaviors.
For example, if you ran a non-anonymous election, you’d be able to get the data about:
- What each person voted on
- When they voted
- Details of various groups (e.g. which department they belong to) can help you construct powerful reports that showcase trends that are important to your organization
The Raw Data Export is only available for eBallot for Business.
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Paper Voting Tabulation
We will officially count your paper ballots.
Though we pride ourselves in providing secure, digital voting, we also understand there are circumstances where a combination of paper and digital are most effective.
In addition to online voting, we offer your voters a combination of mail-in ballots and post card notification mailers as an alternative option.
Trusted tabulation services.
If you believe some or all of your voters would feel more comfortable mailing in their ballots, our team will count those votes and ensure they're accounted for in your final results. This helps when you have groups of voters who you might not consider digitally-forward, or when you want to offer a mail-in option.Paper Voting Tabulation is only available with eBallot for Business.
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Advanced Reporting & Analytics
Tailored analytics reports.
We create customized charts, graphs, and other analytics reports for organizations who want to quickly make sense of their voting outcomes. If you don't think you'll get what you need from our standard reports, see if we can help build a more custom set of reports.
Learn more about Advanced Reporting and Analytics.
Advanced Reporting and Analytics Services are only available with eBallot for Business.