How to Create a Vote or Poll

Learn how to create votes, add questions and answer choices, select voters, publish, and manage the voting process.

Creating a new vote

1. Go to Votes in the navigation menu.
2. Click New Vote.

Adding a question and choices

1. Add a question to the vote.
2. Select the answer type: 

• Checkboxes will allow voters to choose one or more answer. 
• Radio Buttons will only allow one answer to be selected.
• Text Box allows for short free text answers.
• Paragraph Box allows for long free text answers. 

3. Enter the response options (if applicable).
4. Optionally add a comment box.

Selecting voters

1. Go to the Set Voters section.
2. Select the users or groups who are eligible to vote. If no groups or individuals are selected, the vote is open to all users.

Additional Options and Settings

Restrict Admin Access

To restrict viewing and editing access to specific admins, click Change next to “Admins can view/edit this vote.”.

Select the Admins you would like to grant viewing and editing access to, or select to restrict the vote to you and Super Users only.  

Note: By default, the vote will be visible to all Admins and Super Users. Super Users will have complete access to all votes.  

Attaching Files

To add a supporting file to the vote, click the Add Files button.

Member Portal Results Viewing Options

You can select whether your users have the ability to see the Vote results in the member apps, and the format in which they can see them.

View Count/Percent: Users see the number and percent for each selection. This option is not applicable for text and paragraph response types.

Private: Users do not see any results in the member apps.

Votes by Member: Users can see the vote made by each member.

Standalone Votes vs. Agenda-attached Votes

Standalone votes are created independently and published directly from the Votes area.

Agenda-attached votes are linked to a specific agenda item within a meeting. These votes cannot be published independently — they become available to voters when the meeting is published by the administrator.

Publishing

Click Save and Publish to publish the vote.

A notification will be generated on the notifications page. You can select to send the notification manually, delete the notification, or if auto-delivery is enabled, the notification will be sent the next morning.

Viewing and Exporting Vote Results

To view the results of a Vote, open the Vote details page. View individual responses by clicking the Results by Member tab. View the total results by clicking the Total Results tab.

Vote results can be exported or printed directly from Govenda. To export the results to XLS, open the Total Results tab and click the Export button. 

Re-voting

Govenda allows voters to change their vote until the vote is closed. Each new submission replaces the voter's previous answers.

Closing a Vote

When voting is complete, close the vote to prevent further submissions. Once closed, no changes can be made by voters.