Voting Software

What is voting software and how do I choose the right one?

Voting software helps organizations and government bodies organize data from elections, surveys, and polls in order to gather public opinion more efficiently.

Most voting software products are priced “per month” basis, and their entry-level pricing plan ranges from $12 to $159+*. An enterprise product priced higher may include additional features such as conditional logic, watermarking, and white labeling.

First-time buyers consider budget, user needs, and integrations when evaluating options. To identify the best system for your needs, consult stakeholders on key vendor questions: 

What are the data encryption capabilities of the software?

How does the software handle high voter turnout?

Does the software allow editing the ballot design for specific organizational requirements?

What is voting software?

Voting software is a digital platform that allows individuals to cast votes securely over the internet. Businesses and government bodies commonly use it to elect leadership within organizations or gather public opinion on new services/products. The key features of this type of software include voter registration, ballot creation, vote tallying, and results reporting.

Voting software enhances accessibility as voters can participate from anywhere at any time during the voting period. The tool offers speed in processing results compared to traditional paper-based methods, while reducing potential errors associated with manual counting.

What are the core features of voting software?

• Voter management: Manage and keep track of voter registration details. The voter management feature facilitates the creation, updating, or deleting of a voter's database, which could be used for future reference. It also verifies eligible voters by ensuring that each vote is unique and valid.

• Ballot management: Ensure secure and efficient ballot creation, distribution, collection, and counting. Ballot management features provide tools for creating customizable electronic or paper-based voting forms while ensuring the privacy of voters' identities. It streamlines vote tallying processes to reduce errors in results.

What are the benefits of using voting software?

• Ensures secure and anonymous voting: The voting software tool uses advanced encryption technology to protect voter identities, ensuring the vote remains anonymous. It also implements stringent security measures to avoid any unauthorized access or tampering with votes. As a result, voters can confidently cast their ballots without fear of privacy breaches or manipulation of results.

• Provides faster results: Voting software automates the vote-counting process, eliminating manual errors and speeding up result delivery. As soon as voting ends, it instantly calculates results based on input data without any delays associated with hand-counting paper ballots. This allows for quicker decision-making following elections or polls.

• Enables remote voting capabilities: Voting software enables remote voting, meaning voters can participate in elections from anywhere. This eliminates geographical barriers and increases voter participation as individuals who may be unable to reach polling stations due to distance or physical limitations still have the opportunity to vote with ease, thereby strengthening democratic processes.

What are the potential issues with voting software?

• Inefficient audit trails: Inefficient audit can lead to difficulties in tracking and verifying votes, potentially resulting in inaccurate election results or even manipulation of the vote count, undermining trust in the electoral process. Therefore, robust and efficient auditing capabilities are essential for any reliable voting system.

• Limited platform compatibility: Compatibility limitations in voting software can be a potential issue with voting software. If the tool isn't compatible across various devices and operating systems, it restricts voters' ability to participate in elections from their preferred devices. This could lead to decreased voter participation or even vote discrepancies due to technical issues on specific platforms.

• Limited integration capabilities: Voting software with limited integration capabilities might not be able to communicate effectively with other systems such as customer relationship management, database management, or emailing platforms. This could result in inaccurate voting lists or miscommunication between voters and organizing authorities.

How much does voting software cost?

Most voting software products are priced “per month” basis, and their entry-level pricing plan ranges from $12 to $1,599+*. An enterprise product priced higher may include additional features such as conditional logic, watermark, and white labeling.

*The pricing included is for the entry-level/lowest-priced offerings found on vendor websites as of August 20, 2024.

What is voting software used for?

Voting software helps businesses efficiently organize elections, surveys, and polls while assessing results for efficient decision-making. Depending on the data fed into the system and the available software features, it can have multiple use cases.

• Gathering employee feedback: Managers can organize and share survey forms to understand how their employees truly feel about their jobs and work life. An online voting system with secret balloting helps employees express their feelings and requirements by understanding and trusting their feedback will be heard without being directly tied to them. 

• Electing leadership: Businesses can use online voting systems to elect leadership roles like board members or other senior positions, such as chair, vice president, secretary, or treasurer. Voter profiles are created using biographies, resumes, and headshots for voters to assess each candidate before voting.  

• Altering operational procedures and bylaws: Seek employee opinion on a change of procedure or newly introduced products or services. Voters can submit group or individual responses which can be anonymous or linked to a particular individual or group. The tool allows attaching relevant documents explaining how adding a new process could be better or a change could be made to the existing organizational processes.

Which software tools integrate with voting software?

A voting tool integrates with various solutions for data export and import. We looked across thousands of reviews from the software users to identify the products users frequently mentioned they integrated with their tools:

• Microsoft PowerPoint productivity software and voting software integrate to present results or insights from audience polls using interactive elements, such as charts and graphs. The slides can either be presented during a meeting or shared with team members to improve the decision-making process.

• Buddy is an application development tool that integrates with voting software to enhance tool capabilities with specific features and eliminate bugs that may hamper the voting or result analysis process.

• Google Forms, a forms automation system, integrates with voting software to create interactive survey forms and share with the audience across multiple platforms. This allows for editing specific fields, types of questions, or business branding. 

• Adobe Acrobat Reader is a PDF tool that integrates with voting software to support election or survey preparation. Users can create documents that explain the eligibility requirements, candidate profiles, and voting processes, and then share them with voters or survey takers.

• Instagram community software and voting software integrate to provide a platform for organizations to share election details, candidate profiles, or survey forms with their social media community.

*We identified these integrations mentioned most often in verified reviews of voting software published on GetApp within the past two years (as of August 20, 2024).

Key considerations when purchasing voting software

• Verify the data encryption capabilities: Data encryption capabilities ensure the confidentiality and integrity of voter information, protecting it from unauthorized access, tampering, or fraud. Without strong encryption measures, there's a risk that malicious entities could manipulate votes or compromise personal details.

• Evaluate the capacity to handle high voter turnout: The ability to process large amounts of data during peak voting periods is crucial. A capable system can handle high voter turnout without crashing, ensuring accurate results and maintaining voter confidence in the electoral process.

• Examine the ballot design flexibility: Flexibility in ballot design allows for customization, such as different voter categories, multiple language options, and various question formats (e.g., yes/no, rank choice). This adaptability ensures the voting process is inclusive and suited to diverse needs.

• Check the ability to provide real-time voting results: Real-time voting results provide immediate transparency and allow for quicker decision-making. It enhances engagement as participants can see the live impact of their votes and reduces uncertainty caused by delays in processing or counting votes.

Sources

Products evaluated for the pricing calculation were taken from GetApp’s voting software directory. The pricing ranges exclude freemium versions of the products. The features highlighted were identified based on their relevance and the percentage of products in GetApp's directory that offer them. 

Disclaimer

This voting software buyers guide was authored by GetApp's content team. We develop our guides using the author's expertise, insights from 2M+ unique user reviews, and our proprietary data science algorithms to identify trends in user sentiment, preferences, and priorities. Some text was generated with assistance from artificial intelligence tools.