Edit your invitations and email yourself a test

Who gets an invitation, and when

A banner at the top says who gets an invitation and when, such as “Invitations go to 230 email addresses when voting opens, Tue, Nov 3 at 9:00 AM.”

• Invitations go out when voting opens. If the opening time has passed when you launch, or you pressed Now on Start, they go out right after launch, and the banner ends “as soon as you launch.”
• The page has an Email card when email invitations are on, and a Text message card when text messages are on.
• If you hand out every key yourself, the page says “Nothing to write”: no email or text message is sent. To invite members by email or text instead, turn that on in Start.

Edit the email

• The subject is set for you: Vote in, followed by the election name. Replies go to your account email.
• Edit Your message like any text box. Wrap words in two asterisks, like **this**, to make them bold.
• Use the Insert buttons under the message to add a label where your cursor is.
• The email can be up to 10,000 characters.

Voters get your message under your logo (or your organization's name, if there's no logo) and the heading Voting Invitation, with a Vote Now button below it.

Labels you can insert

In a text message, the deadline is shorter, such as Nov 10, 2026 5:00 PM MST. The labels stand for the tags older guides wrote as #election-name#, #ballot-link# and so on. Text you paste with the old tags shows them as labels.

The voting link stays in

Every message needs its voting link, so [Voting link] can't be deleted by accident. Backspace, Delete or typing over it is undone, and the page explains: “The voting link stays in the message. To move it, cut it and paste it where it goes.”

If you cut it, paste it back where it belongs, or press the Voting link button under Insert, which appears while the link is missing. A message without its voting link won't save.

Edit the text message

The text message starts as “Vote in [Election name] at [Voting link] by [Deadline].”

• A counter under the message shows its length once the labels are filled in, such as “98 of 160 characters once filled in · sent as 1 text”.
• A text message can be up to 160 characters once filled in. A longer one won't save.
• Characters outside the basic set, such as emoji, cut each text to 70 characters.
• Text messages are plain text, and only Voting link, Election name and Deadline can be inserted.

Preview what voters see

The What voters see panel shows the real invitation email on a phone, with a sample key in place of each voter's own. It refreshes as you type, and its links don't open. When both email and text messages are on, switch between the Email and Text message tabs.

Email yourself a test

1. Press Email me a test at the top of the Email card.
2. Check your inbox. The subject is Test: Vote in, followed by the election name.
3. Open it on the kind of phone or computer your members use. Its links open your ballot preview, where nothing is counted.

• The test sends the message as it is now, even before you save.
• It goes to your account's email address, which the card shows.
• Your email address must be verified. Until it is, the button is greyed out and the card offers Resend the verification email.
• You can send 5 tests an hour.
• The button is in the Email card, so it's there only when email invitations are on.

Reset, save and continue

• Reset to default puts back the message we wrote, after asking “Replace your message with the default?”
• Save keeps you on the page. Continue to launch saves and moves on. Back returns to Voters.
• If a message can't be saved, the page says “Fix the highlighted message, then try again.”
• Leaving with changes you haven't saved asks first.

A reminder sends this same invitation again to members who haven't voted, so write it to read well a second time. See reminders and resending keys.