Your site can ask the members a question and count the answers: a quick poll on a date for the picnic, or a proper election for officers or a change to the bylaws. Members vote from a link in an email, and you see the turnout as it comes in. This note covers making a poll, the difference an election makes, who can vote, results, and chasing people who have not voted. If you have not opened the tool before, How to make edits on an Avistra website shows the sign-in.
Making or changing a poll, and seeing who has voted, needs your passkey. Signed in with only the emailed code, Polls asks you to set up a passkey or use it first. How to set up a passkey on an Avistra website walks through it.
Where polls live
Choose Dashboard in the bar in the lower right, then Membership on the left, then Polls. Voting is something members do, so polls are part of Membership, and a site without memberships has no polls.
The list has chips for Open, Scheduled, Drafts and Closed, and each poll shows when it closes and how many people have voted so far.
A poll or an election
They are the same thing with different settings. This is an election, near the top of the form, switches on the strict ones and locks them:
- Votes are secret.
- One vote each.
- Results are shown only after it closes.
- The questions cannot be changed once anyone has voted.
Use it for choosing officers or changing the bylaws. Leave it off for everything more casual.
Making a poll
New poll opens the form.
- Title and Introduction. The introduction is where the rules go, or a word about the candidates.
- Questions. Add a question for each one, and choose its kind:
- Pick one
- Pick up to a number you set
- Yes, no or abstain
- A short answer, for comments (not in an election)
Give each choice its words, and for a candidate, an optional statement. You can add a "None of these" choice, and Shuffle the choices for each voter so nobody benefits from being listed first.
- Who can vote (below).
- Opens and Closes, a date and time. Or skip the date and choose Open it now.
- Votes and Results (below).
- Emails. Tell voters when it opens sends each voter a link straight to the ballot. Reminders can go automatically to people who have not voted, 3 days and 1 day before it closes.
Then Save as draft, Schedule if it opens later, or Open it now.
Who can vote
- Active members, the default. Members whose renewal is due count as active.
- Members on chosen levels, for a vote that belongs to one level.
- Organizations, one vote each, cast by the person who manages the seats, for organization memberships.
- Chosen people, for a board vote: pick them by name.
The form says how many people can vote before you open it.
Secret or not
- Votes are secret, the default. You see whether somebody has voted, never what they chose, and the site keeps no link between the two. A secret vote cannot be changed once it is cast, and members are told that before they submit.
- Votes show who voted for what. For a poll where that is fine. Here you can also let Members can change their vote until it closes.
Results
Choose when results are shown: After it closes, Straight away (not in an election), or Only admins see them. While a poll is open, you see Results so far, and members do not.
Once it closes, open the poll and choose Share results to show them to members, on the poll page and in their account, with an optional email to everyone who voted. Download results saves them as a spreadsheet: counts only for a secret poll, names as well for one that shows who voted for what.
Who has voted
Open a poll, then Who has voted. The chips split it into Voted and Not voted yet. In a secret poll the list shows the day somebody voted, not the time.
- Send a reminder emails everybody who has not voted yet, with a link straight to the ballot. It can be sent at most once a day.
- Record a paper vote is for a member who voted by mail or in the room. Choose the person and enter their choices. They are marked as having voted, and in a secret poll their choices are added to the count without their name.
What members see
The email when a poll opens takes them straight to the ballot. They answer, submit, and get a line to say the vote is in. In their account, Polls lists what is open to them, what they have voted in, and results that have been shared. A person who cannot vote in a poll is told why, in a sentence, rather than shown a ballot.
Changing or closing a poll
Before anyone votes, everything can change. After the first vote, the questions and choices are locked, but you can still move the closing date. Close now ends a poll early; it asks first and tells you how many people have not voted yet.
Who can do this
Full admins and Membership admins make polls, open and close them, send reminders and record paper votes. An admin who can look at everything sees results and who has voted, and changes nothing.
If you get stuck
Send it to us. Choose Support request in the bar: a poll that needs to run to your bylaws, a vote recorded against the wrong person, a question about secrecy. How to submit a support request on an Avistra website shows how.