The journey to election day

Five steps. One shared voice.

A little preparation from you. Hands-on support from us. Here’s how we bring your election to life.

Make the election yours.

Share your organisation’s details and logo, together with the contact details of your primary user and electoral officer. Then tell us how your election should work.

The essentials

Provide the details of each election, its start and end dates and times, the number of candidates each voter may select, and your required quorum percentage, if applicable. Include any poll questions.

Communication preferences

Choose how voters should hear from you: WhatsApp or SMS, with an optional email. Supply any PDF document you would like to distribute or a URL you would like to send.

Validation mode

Tell us whether voters attending in person must first enter a code or scan a code before they can vote.

Candidate display

If applicable, choose the candidate sort order: ascending, descending or random. Choose how names appear: Name Surname or Surname Name.

Bring your voters together.

Start with our Excel template and use one row per person. Keep the column headings unchanged, give everyone a unique identifier, and check the details before sharing your roll.

Download the voters-roll template

Excel workbook · .xls

Your roll, column by column.

Name and surname: Enter the name and surname of each voter or candidate.
ID_Number: Give each person a unique number. A South African ID number is accepted, but any unique identifier will do.
Mobile_No: Used to send a voting link by SMS or WhatsApp. Use a plus sign, country code and number, with no spaces: +27836523459. Other international numbers are accepted, but SMS messages are sent only to South African numbers. Preserve the leading + when entering numbers in Excel.
Email_Address Optional: If supplied, the voter will also receive an email with election information and a voting link.
Tag1: Identify the voter’s main group, such as Parent, Educator or Worker.
Tag2: Add a second group where relevant. Someone could be a Parent in Tag1 and an Educator in Tag2. These two fields are important: they let us select the correct voter audience for each election. Use consistent group names throughout your roll.
Weight: Use 1 by default. If your election rules give some voter groups more voting weight, specify the appropriate weight for each voter in those groups.
Voter: Mark every row with an X because this is a voters roll.
Candidate: Mark candidates with an X. You can complete this column later if nominations are still open.

Get everyone ready.

Run your organisation’s nomination process and tell voters what to expect. Share this short VotingCrowd tutorial so everyone knows how to take part.

Watch the voting tutorialA simple introduction to casting your vote · YouTube

Your organisation manages nominations. For once-off elections managed by VotingCrowd, our team sets up the election and imports your roll. Annual clients manage these steps themselves; our upcoming AI tool will also offer a self-service option.

Meet the candidates.

Once nominations close, mark the candidates on your voters roll. Supply candidate photographs, named with the same unique identifier used in the roll, preferably in PNG format.

Ready for the next step?

Find the pricing option that fits your election calendar.

Explore pricing ↗