ElectionChamp Support Guide

Enter the Election name, up to 60 characters, for example "2027 Board of Directors Election". Voters see it on the ballot and in their invitation.

Enter the Organization, up to 120 characters. A new election fills it in from your last election.

Drop a PNG or JPG of up to 1.5 MB on the box, or choose a file. It shows on the ballot, on the page voters see after they vote, and in invitation emails. Use Replace or Remove to change it.

A new election opens tomorrow at 9:00 AM and closes 7 days later at 5:00 PM. Next to Open for, click 3 days, 1 week or 2 weeks to set the close in one click. Press Now to open voting as soon as you launch.

The times use the zone your browser reports, and the page names it under the dates. Click Change to pick another zone. Voting opens and closes at the same moment for everyone, wherever they are. Invitations show the deadline in this zone.

Up to 60 characters, for example "Board of Directors" or "Approve the 2027 budget".

Plurality (voters tick their choices, and the most votes win), Nominations (no list; voters write in names), Ranked (voters number their choices, and higher ranks earn more points) or Cumulative (each voter gets one vote per winner to give to one choice or spread out).

Total winners is how many win, from 1 to 999. For Plurality, choose Up to or Exactly under Voters select. A sentence under the counts says what voters do and who wins, for example: "Each voter picks up to 3 candidates. The 3 with the most votes win."

Choose Candidates or Options under Voters choose. Type a name and press Enter for the next one, or paste a column of names to add them all. Drag the grip to reorder. Every question except Nominations needs at least 2 choices, and at least as many as the winners, up to 50. A name can't be listed twice.

Click Photo & bio beside a name. The photo can be a JPG, PNG or GIF under 1.5 MB and shows beside the name. Voters open the bio with View Information.

They appear on the ballot under the question's choices. You can use bold, italic, underline, bulleted and numbered lists, and links.

Once the ballot is saved, Preview the full ballot opens every question in a new tab. Try voting; nothing is counted.

Copy your rows in Excel, Google Sheets or Numbers, click a cell in the voter list and press Ctrl+V (⌘V on a Mac). The list grows to fit, however many rows you paste.

• Include the heading row and the columns are matched by name, in any order: for example Name or Label, Email, Phone or Mobile, Weight, Ballot ID. Columns the list doesn't use, such as Address, are skipped, and a note above the list names them.
• Without a heading row, the columns fill from the cell you clicked to the right, in the order the list shows them.
• Copy a single value, select a column (click its heading) and paste to fill every voter's cell, for example a weight of 1.
• The Paste rows… button opens a box for pasting rows or comma-separated (CSV) text, which is handy on a tablet.

Which columns you need depends on your settings. Email needs an email address, Text message needs a phone number (see phone numbers for SMS), and Weighted ballots needs a weight (see weights).

Drop a CSV file on the box above the list, or click Upload CSV. In Match your columns, each row is a column of your voter list: check which column of your file fills it. Columns are matched by heading where they can be. Other columns of your file, such as a downloaded list's Voter Key and Status, are never imported, and a note names them; voter keys are always made by ElectionChamp. Then click the Import button, which shows how many voters it adds. The rows get the same checks as a paste. Excel, Numbers and ODS files aren't read: save them as CSV first, or copy the rows and paste them. Download a CSV template gives you a file with this election's column headings.

Click a cell and start typing to replace it, or double-click it to edit. Enter and Tab move down and across, Delete clears the selected cells, and Ctrl+Z undoes, a whole paste in one step. Right-click a row to insert a row or delete the selected rows. You can also copy cells back to your spreadsheet with Ctrl+C.

A value that can't be saved turns its cell red; point at it to see why. A list under the voter list names each problem and its rows, for example "Email address is not valid: rows 4 and 9." Nothing is saved until every row is fixed. Names, emails and phone numbers can repeat, for example a household sharing one email; each voter still gets their own key.

Spare keys let you add members after launch, one at a time, from the Voters tab. Enter how many under Spare keys, beside the price. The box starts at 0, and each spare key counts toward the price. See spare keys for latecomers.

Your election lists the ballot, voters, voting dates, privacy and results, and invitations, each with an Edit link to its step. What happens next shows when keys are made, when voting opens and invitations go out, and when voting closes. Try the ballot first opens the full ballot in a new tab.

If something stops the launch, Before you can launch lists it with a link to the step that fixes it. The button stays off until the list is empty. You need a verified email address, every step finished, at least 2 choices on every question except nominations, voting that closes in the future and after it opens, at least one voter, and a whole-number weight for every voter in a weighted election. A start time that has passed is fine: voting opens at launch.

The Price panel shows the total, and the price shown is the price charged. With more than 20 voters, counting keys you hand out and spare keys, a Card field appears. You pay once, by card, when you press the button.

Keys are made at once, and you land on the election dashboard. Voting opens at your start time, or right away if that time has passed, and the invitations go out then. We also email you the vote link to share with members.

Click More, then Preview ballot, to see exactly what voters see. It opens in a new tab with a "PREVIEW MODE" banner. You can select candidates, confirm and see the thank-you page without affecting real data.

While voting is open, the dashboard's Next step card offers Send reminder to N, where N is how many members it reaches: those who haven't voted and can be reached by email or text. The Voters tab has a Send reminder button too, and both ask you to confirm first. Free elections include 1 reminder; paid elections up to 5, one a day. See reminders and resending.

The Voters tab lists every voter sorted by label, Ballot ID or email, never in the order they voted. Its columns are your list's own (a Label column only when voter labels are on), then Key, Invitation and Status. Search by label, Ballot ID, email, mobile number or the first 4 characters of a key, and filter by Voted or Not voted yet (and Couldn't send, Deactivated or Spare keys when there are any). Each row's key shows only its first 4 characters, then dots; click ⋯ in a row, then Copy key, to copy all of it and see it. The menu opens just under its button and closes with Escape or a tap outside. From the same menu you can resend a voter's invitation email or text, once each, while voting is open. Print keys prints the keys you hand out that haven't been used, Add a voter uses a spare key (it shows while voting is open and spare keys are left), and Download CSV saves the list: your list's own columns (Ballot ID, Label, Email, Phone, Weight, each only when the election uses it), then Voter Key and Status.

In elections launched before 11 October 2026 you can also deactivate a voter's key while voting is open, with Deactivate key in the same menu; if that voter has already voted, their ballot is voided. Elections launched from 11 October 2026 use secret ballots, so no key can be deactivated after launch: remove anyone ineligible from the voter list before you launch.

To end voting before the closing time, click More, then Close voting early (or Close early in the dashboard's timeline). It shows only while voting is open. This action is irreversible and is logged in the audit trail, and a confirmation dialog appears first. You don't need it when everyone has voted: the election closes on its own.

After the election closes, if its results are public, the Results tab offers Send results to members. It emails a secure link to the results page to every voter with an email address and texts it to every voter with a mobile number. You can send it once. When no voter has an email address or mobile number, the button reads Activate results link: it sends nothing and just makes the link work. Until you press one of them there is no results link, so nobody can see the results at a link.

The Audit trail tab is the complete, timestamped record of the election, newest first and grouped by day. Each entry shows its date and time, such as "Oct 14, 3:42 PM": ballots cast (grouped by the hour, such as "12 ballots cast · Oct 14, 3–4 PM", never how anyone voted), invitations and reminders, your actions, and observer links added, revoked and opened. Voter keys are masked. Filter it by kind. Page views are hidden unless you switch on Show page views. Click Download CSV to save all of it, oldest first, with exact times in your election's time zone and in UTC; voter keys are masked there too.

More, then View election setup, opens a read-only summary of the election as launched: every question with its instructions, choices, photos and bios, the settings, the invitations as voters got them, the amount paid and the spare keys used.

On the election's Observers tab, under Add an observer, enter a name (for example "Jane Doe, observer for Alex Smith"), and choose when the link stops working: when voting ends (offered only while voting is open), a number of days after voting ends (1–90; after an early close, or once everyone has voted, counted from when voting actually closed), or a specific date and time in the election's time zone. You can add observers once the election is launched, up to 10 active links per election.

Click Create link, then Copy, and send the link to the observer yourself. Each link in the list has Copy link too. Anyone with the link can open it, so send it only to that person. Observers don't need an account.

Click Revoke and the link stops working at once. The tab shows each link's status (Active, Expired or Revoked), when it was last viewed, and how many times.

Once the election has closed (or during the election, if results are set to You and your observers), go to the Results tab on your election's dashboard.

For each ballot question, you'll see a breakdown of every candidate/option with their vote count, percentage, and, once voting closes, a tag on each winner: Elected when voters choose candidates; with options, Most votes (Most points on a Ranked question) for a single winner, or Top 3 when there are 3 winners. A Ranked question counts points instead of votes. Each question marks as many winners as its Total winners. If choices tie for the last seat, each of them is tagged Tied instead, so no more winners are named than there are seats. Abstain votes are tallied separately.

On the Results tab, under Downloads, click CSV next to Results summary to export a CSV file containing every question, candidate, vote count, percentage, and winner status. This is your record and can be imported into spreadsheets or official documents. Each question also has a Ballots file. In elections launched from 11 October 2026, which use secret ballots, it has one row per ballot with no names, keys or times, and opens once voting closes. In older elections it has one row per choice, with the time each vote was cast, and no names or keys.

Click Send results to members on the Results tab. This emails a secure link to the election results to each voter with an email address and texts it to each voter with a mobile number. You can send it once, and the results link works from then on. When no voter has an email address or mobile number, the button reads Activate results link: it sends nothing and just makes the link work.

You'll receive an email, SMS, or physical letter from your election administrator with a unique voting link or 16-character voter key. This is your personal access pass. Do not share it with anyone.

Click the link in your email/SMS, or go to the ElectionChamp voting page and enter your 16-character key. You can also use your phone's camera to scan the key if you received a printed letter: just tap the camera icon and hold your key within the frame.

For each ballot question, select your preferred candidate(s) or option(s). Each question says how many to choose, for example "Choose up to 3 candidates." Any instructions from your organization appear under the choices. To learn more about a candidate, click View Information to see their photo and biography.

After completing all questions, you'll be taken to a Confirmation Page that summarizes your selections for every ballot question. Review carefully.

• If you need to change something, click "Reselect" to go back.
• If everything looks correct, click "Submit Ballot".

After you submit, a Vote Recorded page confirms that your ballot was submitted. It shows your voter key and the time in UTC. Print the page or take a screenshot as your confirmation. No email is sent.