Run a vote anyone
can verify.

Frequently asked questions

Verifiability, voting methods, voter privacy, regulatory fit, and pricing for HOAs, AGMs, student government, and fan votes.

What does "end-to-end verifiable voting" actually mean?

Three guarantees, all enforced by cryptography rather than trust in us. First: every cast vote's hash chains to the previous vote's hash plus the poll's public chain seed — modify any vote and the chain breaks visibly. Second: each voter receives a unique receipt token they can use at /verify/{pollId} to confirm THEIR vote was counted, without revealing who they voted for. Third: anyone (auditor, opposing candidate, regulator, journalist) can re-tally the entire election from the public chain without trusting Ballotis or our infrastructure — the algorithms are documented and the chain is downloadable. This is the same primitive ElectionGuard and Helios use, simplified to be turn-on-able by non-cryptographers via a poll setting.

Which voting method should I pick for my election?

For most HOA / AGM single-position votes (board chair, bylaw amendment), use single-choice. For competitive multi-candidate elections where a vote-splitting concern exists, use ranked-choice (instant-runoff voting / IRV) — voters rank candidates and Ballotis runs the IRV algorithm to elect a true majority winner. For multi-seat board elections, use multi-winner STV with Droop quota (prevents bloc-voting domination). For fan-vote / people's-choice scenarios where you want consensus rather than plurality, use Schulze beatpath or Borda. We support twelve methods total, all with academic citations and Vitest coverage in src/lib/voting-methods.ts. The poll-creation wizard suggests a method based on your use case.

Is my voter list / voter privacy protected?

Yes, on multiple layers. We never expose voter identities to the public chain — only their salted receipt token, which is unguessable from the outside. The voter list itself is org-scoped data; only org admins and the voter themselves can see it. Email magic-link or SMS OTP verification proves a voter is who they say they are without us learning anything about how they voted. The link between a voter and their vote is a hash, not a plaintext mapping; even with full database access, recovering vote-to-voter mapping requires breaking SHA-256. We're SOC-2-process-aware (audit in flight); GDPR / CCPA data-subject requests are handled at /privacy/request — we'll redact a voter from the chain on request, and the chain self-validates the redaction.

Can Ballotis be used for legally-binding elections (HOA bylaws, union, regulated)?

Often yes, but with caveats — verify with your counsel before deploying for anything legally binding. Ballotis provides defensible cryptographic primitives (verifiable mode, per-voter receipts, public re-tally) that align with most state-level HOA voting requirements (California Civil Code §5115 for instance). Pro+ adds independent-observer audit attestation. For LMRDA-regulated union elections or government-regulated bylaw votes, the Enterprise tier ships with regulator-grade audit attestation + dedicated CSM during your election window. We don't currently certify against specific election-software certification regimes (EAC VVSG, CAC) — that's a deliberate scope limitation; if you need those, you need a different vendor.

How do I prevent bots / coordinated voting / vote stuffing?

Eight layers, each toggleable per poll. (1) Email magic-link verification — voter must click a link in a real inbox. (2) SMS OTP verification (Pro+) — voter must receive a code on a real phone. (3) CAPTCHA via Turnstile/reCAPTCHA/hCaptcha. (4) Headless-browser detection. (5) Tor / VPN block. (6) Disposable-email block (we maintain a known-bad-domain list). (7) Per-IP and per-email rate limits with cooldown windows. (8) Geofencing per poll (allow/block voter countries). Combined, these stop the vast majority of casual coordination attempts. For high-stakes votes, enable verifiable mode + the public verification log so your community can independently spot anomalies.

What's the difference between Ballotis and Aclamos?

Same company, same codebase, different scopes. Aclamos is the full awards-show platform — submissions, judging, ceremony, certificates, finance — with voting as one feature among many. Ballotis is the standalone voting product for organizations that ONLY need votes (HOAs, AGMs, student gov, fan votes). Both share the same verifiability stack and the same twelve voting methods; pick Ballotis when you don't need submissions or jury workflows. The pricing differs because the use cases differ: Ballotis sells per-election (most votes happen once or twice a year) while Aclamos primarily sells per-year subscriptions. You can switch from one product surface to the other on a single org by contacting support.

How much does Ballotis cost?

Two paths. Per-election (one-time): Free for ≤25 voters, Starter $49 for ≤250 voters, Standard $149 for ≤1,000, Pro $349 for ≤2,500 with custom domain + white-label, Pro+ $649 for ≤5,000. Subscription (for >4 elections per year): Free with caps, Solo $39/mo for ≤1k voters and 6 elections/yr, Team $129/mo for ≤5k voters and 24 elections/yr with custom domain + REST API, Org $399/mo for ≤10k voters and unlimited elections with SAML SSO. Annual subscriptions get 2 months free. Verifiability ships on every tier including free. We charge 0% per vote on every plan — the price you see is the price.

Does Ballotis integrate with our existing systems?

Programmatic access via REST API + outbound webhooks on Team subscription and above. The API at /api/v1 is bearer-token-scoped (polls:read, polls:write, voters:read scopes) so you can wire Ballotis into your AMS, CRM, member portal, or LMS. Webhooks fire on poll.opened, vote.cast, poll.closed, poll.tallied — typical use is auto-syncing the tally to a board portal. We don't currently ship native Salesforce / iMIS / Higher Logic / SCIM connectors as Ballotis-side integrations; if those are required, the Enterprise tier includes a connector build. Custom domain (vote.yourorg.com) is included on Pro per-election and Team subscription and up.