Manage responses
Deal with suspicious votes
What to do when one option suddenly gets a flood of votes.
An option that jumps by hundreds of votes in a few minutes is a sign someone is trying to game your poll. Here’s what to do.
1. Tighten the settings right away
Open the Settings tab and make it harder to vote again:
- Switch Duplicate check to Email address or Unique code.
- Turn on Block VPNs and proxies and Require CAPTCHA.
New votes are checked with the new settings straight away. See Stop bots, VPNs and ballot stuffing.
2. Look at the responses
On the Results tab, the responses table shows when each response came in. A burst of responses within seconds of each other is a typical pattern of a script.
Select the responses you don’t trust and click Invalidate. They stay in the list and the CSV export, marked as invalidated, but no longer count towards results or limits.
3. Start over if you have to
Votes that are already in can’t be checked again with stricter settings. If the result is clearly compromised, the fairest option is often to export the data, reset the poll with the stricter settings in place and ask people to vote again.
Prevent it next time
Choose how to limit responses before you share, and keep results hidden until the poll closes. That takes away most of the reason to cheat.