Polls & voting
Fair voting
How to keep a vote fair step by step, from the duplicate check to bots, VPNs and hidden results.
Which protection fits which vote, how to combine them for a big public poll, what to do when something looks off, and how to stay fair to voters’ privacy too.
Ask three questions first
- Does anyone gain from cheating? In a contest, a giveaway or an election, someone always does. Use Email address or Unique code.
- Do you know exactly who should vote? With a list of people, use Unique code or personal email invites. Only they can vote, each once.
- Can you trust your participants? A team, a family or friends won’t cheat, so strong protection only gets in the way. Use Browser session or Respondent name.
Match the protection to the vote
- Friends, family, a team: Browser session. IP address would block everyone after the first person on a shared Wi-Fi.
- Public polls on social media, chats and streams: IP address, plus Block VPNs and proxies.
- Contests and awards: Email address, VPN blocking, Require CAPTCHA on Pro and Business, and results hidden until the close.
- Elections and member votes: Unique codes for a secret ballot, or email invites when you reach everyone by email.
Set it before you share the link. Votes already in can’t be checked again under a new setting.
Take away the reason to cheat
When people can watch a close race, they recruit friends, other servers or bots. Set Access to results to After the form closes, and set a clear close date under Open & close dates, so everyone gets the same window and nobody sees the leader until it’s over.
When something looks off
- Tighten the settings right away: new votes are checked with the new settings.
- Open the responses table on the Results tab. Bursts within seconds of each other are a typical script.
- Select the responses you don’t trust and click Invalidate. They stay in the list and the export, marked, but stop counting.
- If the result is clearly compromised, export the data, reset the poll with stricter settings and ask people to vote again.
Fair to voters, too
Protection shouldn’t cost privacy. Unique codes aren’t tied to names, so a ballot can be checked and still stay secret. Browser and IP checks don’t ask for names either. Throwaway inboxes aren’t accepted for email verification, and responses are stored on servers and databases in Germany.
Tip: Stronger isn’t always better. Every extra step costs some honest votes, so use the lightest protection the vote can afford.