Our statutes do not mention electronic voting. Can we still do it?

Sometimes, but check the wording before you commit, because for an association this is the whole question. Association law generally regulates how decisions are taken and stays silent on the medium, which leaves it to your statutes. Some statutes describe the guarantees a vote must offer rather than the means, and electronic voting is available under those. Others provide only for voting in person or by proxy, and then remote voting has to be added first. Send us your text and we will tell you which of the two you are in, including when the answer is that you need an amendment. We would rather say so now than run an assembly whose decisions get annulled.

Can we still allow proxies and delegated votes?

Yes, where your statutes provide for them, and the limits stop being a manual check. If a member may carry at most three delegated votes, the platform applies that; if your federation gives a member organisation weight in proportion to its own membership, it carries that weight. What changes is that the limits are enforced as written rather than reconstructed by a volunteer from a pile of forms on the morning of the assembly.

How do we know the assembly actually reached quorum?

Quorum is calculated from your own definition, including categories of member that count differently or not at all, and your board watches it in real time rather than finding out at the end. The participation log is time-stamped and goes into the file you keep, so the answer to "was quorum met when that motion passed" is a document rather than a recollection.

Some of our members are in their seventies and do not use apps.

There is no app to install. It is a web page on any device, with a support line staffed through the whole voting window. If part of your membership is genuinely offline, you can run the assembly as a hybrid: we set up an assisted voting point in your venue on the same register, so those members vote with help and still nobody votes twice.

Who is responsible for what?

We are responsible for the platform, the technical configuration, the integrity and verifiability of every vote cast, the monitoring during the voting window, and the count, reports and evidence at close. You are responsible for the accuracy of the member register at the cut-off, for who is entitled to vote, and for the procedural decisions that belong to your board. No provider can take those decisions for you, and you should be wary of one that offers to.

Where does our member data live?

In the EU, under a signed data processing agreement, used only to run your vote and deleted on the schedule you set. The register is minimised to an identifier plus one contact channel. Who is on your member register, and whether they voted, is sensitive information. We treat it that way.

Has a result run on Vocdoni ever been challenged?

No. No voting process Vocdoni has organised has been challenged. Several have been audited and checked, by the organisation itself and by third parties, and everything came back clean every time. We would rather you did not take that on faith either: every vote closes with the documents that let somebody else check the count for themselves.

Can we keep the results hidden until voting closes?

Yes. In encrypted mode nobody sees any result while the vote is open, including us, and the tally is published automatically at close. The alternative is a live running tally, which suits an internal consultation but rarely a board election or a statute amendment.

We are a volunteer-run association. Is this affordable, and is it a lot of work?

There is a free plan with no time limit, and paid plans are priced by the number of members, so a small association pays little or nothing. On effort, compare it with the assembly you run today: the venue, the printing, the postage, the proxy forms checked by hand and the evening spent counting. One person can set up a vote in an afternoon, and next year you reopen this year's configuration instead of rebuilding it from memory.

for associations and federations

Assemblies that reach quorum, and decisions that hold

Board elections, statutory votes and general assemblies for associations and federations. Configured from your own statutes, run remotely or hybrid, and closed with the record that shows how the result was reached.

Set up a test vote Talk to an election expert

Free account, no credit card.

Associations and federations that vote with Vocdoni

Quorum tracked live against your own rule
Secret ballot by design
Fully remote, or hybrid with a room
GDPR, hosted in the EU

votes processed on Vocdoni infrastructureVocdoni platform figures: 200,000+
voting processes run with Vocdoni technologyVocdoni project history: 500+
running statutory and public elections in productionopen source, publicly inspectable: Since 2018

the position you are actually in

An assembly that barely made quorum, and a decision somebody can still unpick

An association's decisions are only as strong as the participation behind them. When an assembly scrapes quorum on a pile of proxy forms, everything voted there is arguable — and the people arguing are your own members.

Quorum
Members are spread across the country, the assembly is on a Saturday morning, and the room holds the same forty people it held last year. You reach quorum on proxies, or you postpone and convene again.
What changes with Vocdoni
Members vote in two minutes from wherever they are, so quorum comes from members who actually decided rather than from forms somebody collected.
The proxies
Delegation forms arrive by email, get checked by hand, and one person ends up carrying twenty votes. It is lawful, it is in your statutes, and it is the first thing a disgruntled member points at.
What changes with Vocdoni
Every member votes for themselves, and where your statutes allow delegation the platform enforces the limits instead of a volunteer counting signatures.
The record
Months later somebody asks how the count was reached. The honest answer is a spreadsheet, a scanned attendance sheet and the recollection of the people who were there.
What changes with Vocdoni
The count is published with the record it was calculated from, so your board can point at evidence instead of memory.

Safe and transparent participation

We chose Vocdoni because it guarantees safe, reliable, and transparent participation for all our members at the annual general assembly.

Ton Barnils

General Director · Centre Excursionista de Catalunya

an association like yours

A cultural association that took its statutory assemblies online

Òmnium Cultural holds its statutory assemblies on Vocdoni: ballots that stay secret, members taking part from wherever they are, and a result that is auditable rather than asserted.

Òmnium Cultural

Membership association, Catalonia, statutory assemblies

“The commitment to Vocdoni has been clear. At Òmnium Cultural we bet on a secure and verifiable voting system that would allow us to hold our statutory assemblies with all guarantees.”

Anna Giralt, Executive Manager · Òmnium Cultural

ballot, separated from identity by the system itself: Secret
result, checkable by any member or auditor: Verifiable
no app to install, nothing for a member to set up: Any device
assemblies held to the guarantees the statutes require: Statutory

Read the Òmnium Cultural case study How an association with members across four states votes

Set up a test vote

before anything else

Do our statutes allow this, and what do we show a member who objects?

The two questions that decide whether this reaches your board. Your own statutes sit above everything below: for an association they are not one input among several, they are the instrument.

General framework

What the framework requiresWhat you get against it

Your statutes decide the medium

Association law usually says how decisions are taken — the assembly, the majorities, the notice — and says nothing about by what means. That silence is not permission by default: where remote voting is not provided for, it generally has to be added before you can rely on it.

What you get against it

We read your statutes before configuring anything, and tell you which of the two situations you are in
Eligibility, quorum, majority rules and the voting window are written down and locked before anything opens
If the answer is that you should amend your statutes first, you hear that from us rather than after the vote

A quorum you can evidence

Quorum is the most contested number in an association's year. It has to be computed the way your statutes define it, and shown to have been met at the moment the decision was taken.

What you get against it

Quorum is calculated from your own definition, including categories of member who count differently
Your board watches it against that rule in real time, and knows before the window closes whether the vote will stand
The participation log is time-stamped and goes into the final file

A secret ballot

A member has to be able to vote against the sitting board without anyone finding out — including the volunteers who run the association and see everything else.

What you get against it

Identity and ballot separated by the system itself, not by policy
No single party — your secretariat, your board, or Vocdoni — holds what would be needed to reconstruct a vote
Voters can change their vote until polls close, so nobody can be pressured into proving how they voted

A result that can be checked, and data protection

A count nobody outside the room can check is a count that has to be believed, and your member register is personal data whatever else it is.

What you get against it

The whole process is verifiable end to end, from the sealed register to the published count
A member can confirm their own vote was counted, without revealing how they voted
Data processing agreement, EU hosting, documented retention, and a register minimised to an identifier plus one contact channel

What you get when voting closes

The whole process is verifiable from end to end, and on the day voting closes you get the file that proves it. It holds the signed configuration, a sealed copy of the member register at the cut-off, the participation log against your quorum rule, the published count and the instructions for checking it, together with a report and a certificate of the process for your minutes. It is built for somebody unhappy with the result: a member, an auditor or their adviser can check every part of it without needing anything from you, or from us.

We state the framework as we understand it and produce the evidence above; the legal reading of your own statutes belongs to your counsel.

Talk to an election expert

how it runs

Configured from your statutes, not from a template

These are the capabilities that get cited when a decision is questioned, and the experience they produce for a member.

Configured from your statutes

Seats, categories of member, eligibility rules, quorum and tie-breaks follow your own text. We read it before configuring anything.

The register is sealed before the vote

At the cut-off your member register is locked and sealed with a short code that changes if a single name is added or removed. A dispute about who was entitled to vote takes a minute to settle.

Quorum, live

Your board sees participation against your own quorum rule as it happens, and knows before the window closes whether the assembly will stand. No access to individual votes at any point.

Weighted and delegate voting

For a federation whose members are themselves organisations, votes carry the weight your statutes give them. Where your statutes allow delegation, the platform applies the limits instead of a volunteer checking forms.

Remote, or remote and in person

Most associations run the whole vote remotely. If you want a room as well, members can vote at an assisted point on the same register, so nobody votes twice and the two channels produce one result.

Secret even from you

Identity and ballot are kept apart by the system itself, not by a promise anyone could break. Nobody can put them back together: not your staff, not your board, not Vocdoni.

And what a member actually does

They get a notice
Email or SMS with your own branding, the agenda, the motions and the exact window in which voting is open.
They identify, they do not register
A one-time code by SMS or email confirms this is the member on the register. No account to create, no app to install, no membership number to look up.
They vote
Board seats, statute amendments and the accounts, each with its own majority rule, on one screen with the supporting documents attached.
They can check their own vote
They keep a receipt nobody else has. When voting closes, they can confirm their own vote was counted in the published result.

Most members finish in under two minutes, in the browser they already have open. If part of your membership is genuinely offline, the assisted point runs on the same register, so nobody is excluded and nobody votes twice. The obstacle is almost never the member: it is a missing mobile number in a register nobody has cleaned in years. So we check your contact details before anything opens.

Voting across Catalan-speaking territories

Vocdoni lets us hold votes with members across all Catalan-speaking territories on equal terms. Instant counting simplifies our assemblies and ensures full transparency. We especially value that it is fully available in Catalan.

Rut Carandell

Director · Plataforma per la Llengua

the run-up

What happens between now and the assembly

A statutory assembly is planned backwards from a date in your statutes. This is the shape of it.

4 weeks out
We read your statutes
You send us your statutes and any electoral rules. We come back with what we can run as they stand, and what needs a decision from you.
You and us
3 weeks out
The board approves
Eligibility, the cut-off, quorum, majority rules and the voting window are written down and signed off before anything is built.
Your board
2 weeks out
The register is loaded and checked
Your membership database becomes a voting register, validated against your own criteria. This is where missing mobile numbers and lapsed members surface, while there is still time.
Us
1 week out
A full rehearsal
The real configuration with test voters. Your board walks the process and whoever will run it practises on the console before a single member is invited.
Both teams
Assembly day
Open, monitored, closed
Live participation against quorum for the board, a support line for members, and the count published when the window closes. The documents and the certificate follow the same day.
Us, on call

A simple internal consultation can be live the same week. This schedule is for a statutory assembly under your own notice periods, and most of it is your approvals rather than our configuration.

against the alternatives

Compared with the assembly you hold today, and with the other platforms

Against what your last assembly actually cost you in effort and attendance, and against what a commercial provider hands you at the end. We name no one: this is the shape of the category.

The questionIn the room, with proxiesA typical online providerVocdoni

How you reach quorumIn the room, with proxiesAttendance plus a stack of proxy forms, checked by hand on the morningA typical online providerMore members can vote, but the count is whatever the system reportsVocdoniMembers voting for themselves, tracked live against your own quorum rule

Who can verify the resultIn the room, with proxiesThe people who were in the room when it was countedA typical online providerThe provider, and whoever they show the report toVocdoniAnyone: your board, a member, an auditor, a court

Can the count be redone independentlyIn the room, with proxiesOnly if the papers were kept, and usually they were notA typical online providerUsually not. The result is whatever the system reportsVocdoniYes. Anyone can redo the count from the published record

Who could link a vote back to a memberIn the room, with proxiesNobody, with a paper ballot. Everyone in the room, with a show of handsA typical online providerUsually the provider, because identity and ballot sit in one systemVocdoniNobody. Identity and ballot are separated by the system itself

Delegated votesIn the room, with proxiesPaper forms, counted by a volunteer, with the limits applied by handA typical online providerOften unsupported, or supported without your statutes' limitsVocdoniApplied as your statutes define them, including weight for member organisations

What the board sees during the voteIn the room, with proxiesThe room, and nothing about who has not arrivedA typical online providerA dashboard, if your board is given access to itVocdoniLive participation against quorum, with no access to any ballot

Evidence if a member objectsIn the room, with proxiesThe minutes, the attendance sheet, and the word of those presentA typical online providerA report from the provider, which you have to take on trustVocdoniA reproducible proof, and the audit documents the same day

Members abroad, ill, or working that dayIn the room, with proxiesA proxy form, if they remember to send itA typical online providerThey vote from anywhereVocdoniThey vote from anywhere, or at an assisted point if you run one

Next yearIn the room, with proxiesRebuilt from memory and last year's folderA typical online providerSet up again with the providerVocdoniThe same configuration, reopened

who runs it

Run it yourself, or have us run it with you

Same platform, same guarantees, same evidence at the end. Most associations run their own consultations and committee votes all year, and take the managed service for the statutory assembly.

self-service

You run it, on your own subscription

Create, configure, launch and close your own votes whenever you need them. One person, one afternoon, no IT team and no technical background, with training and a support channel behind you.

Live the same week
Every voting method, weighted and delegate voting included
Public pricing, no sales call

Set up a test vote

managed elections

We run it with you, end to end

We read your statutes, configure the process, load and validate the register, run a full rehearsal with test voters, monitor the assembly and deliver the results, the reports and the evidence pack. You approve, we operate.

A named contact through the whole voting window
A full rehearsal before the real assembly
If your statutes need something unusual, we handle it ourselves

Talk to an election expert

What it costs

There is a free plan with no time limit and no card, and paid plans are priced by the number of members. Those prices are published, so a volunteer treasurer can put a figure in front of the board without booking a call. Managed assemblies, customisation and anything else you need on top are quoted per vote, on the size of your register and what the process involves. See where pricing starts (opens in new tab)

whatever size you are

From a local association to a federation of member organisations

The platform is the same at every size. What changes is how much of it you need and how much we do with you.

Up to about 1,000 members

A local association running it in an afternoon

You do not need a project or a budget line. One person creates the vote, uploads the register and sends the link, on the free plan or a small subscription.

Live the same week
Every voting method, weighted and delegate voting included
Free to start, and free to stay if you are small enough

A few thousand members

A national association with a statutory assembly

The shape most membership associations are. Self-serve or managed depending on what you need: how much you want customised, which extra services you want, or simply which parts you would rather hand to us.

Register imported from your membership database
Full rehearsal before the statutory assembly
Subscription priced by member count, managed work quoted on top

A federation

Member organisations, each with its own weight

Where the members are themselves associations, the vote has to carry the weight your statutes give each of them, and the delegates who cast it have to be the right ones. That is configuration, not a special edition of the product.

Weighted votes and delegate rolls, as your statutes define them
Register synced by API rather than uploaded
Managed end to end, with our team present on the day

the hard questions

What associations ask us before they commit

The questions your board will raise, answered here so you have the answer before they ask.

for the people you have to convince

The parts worth forwarding

You will not decide this alone. Each of these answers one person in the room, and each has its own link you can send them.

For your lawyer
What governs the vote, and what we produce against each requirement.
For your board
What they can see on the day, and what they get to certify against at the close.
For your treasurer
What it costs, and how the two ways of working with us differ.
For the sceptic in the room
How this compares with the assembly you hold today, line by line.

Bring us your statutes

The most useful first conversation is not a demo. Send us your statutes and we will tell you what is configurable as written, what needs a board decision and what would need an amendment at your next assembly. If the answer is that you should not take this vote online yet, we will say so.

Set up a test vote Talk to an election expert

Free account, no credit card. No sales pitch, just answers.

before you decide

Read this first

Guides, explainers and case studies that answer the question you are probably about to ask.

Assemblies that reach quorum, and decisions that hold

An assembly that barely made quorum, and a decision somebody can still unpick

Quorum

The proxies

The record

Safe and transparent participation

Ton Barnils

A cultural association that took its statutory assemblies online

Do our statutes allow this, and what do we show a member who objects?

Your statutes decide the medium

A quorum you can evidence

A secret ballot

A result that can be checked, and data protection

What you get when voting closes

Configured from your statutes, not from a template

Configured from your statutes

The register is sealed before the vote

Quorum, live

Weighted and delegate voting

Remote, or remote and in person

Secret even from you

And what a member actually does

They get a notice

They identify, they do not register

They vote

They can check their own vote

Voting across Catalan-speaking territories

Rut Carandell

What happens between now and the assembly

We read your statutes

The board approves

The register is loaded and checked

A full rehearsal

Open, monitored, closed

Compared with the assembly you hold today, and with the other platforms

Run it yourself, or have us run it with you

You run it, on your own subscription

We run it with you, end to end

What it costs

From a local association to a federation of member organisations

A local association running it in an afternoon

A national association with a statutory assembly

Member organisations, each with its own weight

What associations ask us before they commit

Our statutes do not mention electronic voting. Can we still do it?

Can we still allow proxies and delegated votes?

How do we know the assembly actually reached quorum?

Some of our members are in their seventies and do not use apps.

Who is responsible for what?

Where does our member data live?

Has a result run on Vocdoni ever been challenged?

Can we keep the results hidden until voting closes?

We are a volunteer-run association. Is this affordable, and is it a lot of work?

The parts worth forwarding

For your lawyer

For your board

For your treasurer

For the sceptic in the room

Bring us your statutes

Read this first

How Òmnium Cultural runs its statutory assemblies online

What quorum means for an online vote

How to run a legally valid AGM online

Anonymous voting, explained

Verifiable voting, explained

GDPR requirements for digital voting