Secret ballots & club votes
Secret ballots and club votes
Run a confidential vote inside ClubMeister, such as electing a president at your annual general meeting. Each eligible member votes once, within a time window you set, and nobody can see how anyone voted.
What a ballot is
A ballot is a confidential vote for your club. It was built for officer elections, and it works for any single question with fixed choices, such as a motion with Yes and No as the two options. One ballot is one race: if you are electing a president and a treasurer, you prepare two ballots.
An admin prepares the ballot ahead of time. On the day, eligible members open it, pick one choice (or Abstain) and vote. The people running the ballot can watch who has voted, but never how.
Open Ballots in the side menu (on the web, in the navigation rail). The list is grouped into Open now, Upcoming and Finished, and you only see ballots you are part of.
Ballots are beta. Candidates are fixed, so there are no write-ins. Each voter casts one vote, and there are no proxy votes.
Prepare a ballot
You need a role that is allowed to create under admin settings (usually an admin). If you can create ballots, you see a + on the Ballots screen.
- Open Ballots, tap + and choose New ballot.
- Enter a Title (for example President 2026) and, if you like, a Question (optional).
- Add at least two candidates with Add candidate. Leave Offer "Abstain" on unless you have a reason not to. Without it, a member who does not want to back anyone simply does not vote, and your turnout figure then says something it should not.
- Set Opens and Closes. Votes are only accepted between those times, and the server's clock decides, not the voter's phone.
- Choose who votes and who runs it (see the next section).
- Tap Prepare ballot.
Share the link to the ballot with your members at the meeting. The web address looks like admin.clubmeister.app/ballot?ballotID=…, so share that full path rather than just the domain.
Everything stays editable until the first vote is cast, using Edit ballot on the ballot. From that moment nothing can change: not the candidates, not who may vote, not who counts. A member who turns up unlisted cannot be added once voting has started, so check the voter list beforehand. If you need a correction after the first vote, cancel the ballot and prepare a new one.
Who does what
Under Who does what you name three groups of club members:
- Eligible voters — only these members can vote. Suggest from last season ticks everyone who answered going or checked in at a team event in the past year. It is a starting point, and nothing is saved until you review it.
- Runs the ballot — they manage the voter list, see who has voted, and can end the vote early or cancel it.
- Election committee — they alone see the count once voting closes, they can publish the outcome, start a runoff and end the vote early.
By default The election committee runs the ballot is on. You name the committee once, and it takes both jobs, which is how most clubs run an election. Turn it off to get a separate picker if different people should run the vote and count it.
The three groups are independent and can overlap. In most clubs the committee runs the vote and also votes in it. The form warns you about the two arrangements clubs trip over: a committee that does not run the ballot cannot see who has voted, and a committee nobody put on the voter list cannot vote. It offers a one-tap fix for each.
The pairing to avoid is a candidate running or counting their own race. The app cannot check this for you because candidates are just names, so it depends on whom your club appoints. Every voter can see who runs the ballot and who counts it before they vote.
How members vote
- Open Ballots and tap the ballot, or open the link the organizer shared.
- Before the window you see Voting has not opened yet. After it you see Voting has closed.
- While it is open, pick a candidate or Abstain and tap Cast my vote.
- Confirm. The confirmation reminds you that you can vote once, that it cannot be taken back, and that your vote is secret.
- Afterwards the card reads Your vote has been recorded. It cannot be shown back to you, changed or traced to you.
If your vote was the last one outstanding, you are told that everyone has voted and voting is now closed.
Eligible voters get a push notification when voting opens, with the ballot title and how long is left. It never mentions candidates or results. Because delivery is not guaranteed for every club, also share the ballot link and tell members in the room, especially for a short vote.
What is secret, and from whom
Who voted and what was voted are stored separately, with nothing that links the two. Here is exactly who sees what.
- Voters see the ballot, its candidates and window, and who runs and counts it. They see no running totals and no list of other voters. After the outcome is published they see who was elected (or that it tied) and the turnout, never vote counts or shares.
- The people running the ballot see a Who has voted list: every eligible member, whether they voted and when, plus “N of M eligible voters”. They can save it as a CSV. It never shows a choice, and they see no totals unless they are also on the election committee.
- The election committee sees nothing extra while voting is open. The count is sealed for them too. Once voting closes, only they see the full count: votes and shares per candidate, abstentions, votes cast and turnout.
- Club admins who are on none of the three lists cannot see or open the ballot at all, published or not. If your president should see the count, put them on the election committee. If they should see the published outcome, put them on the voter list.
- Other members see nothing, only an empty Ballots list.
Nobody can see how an individual voted: not the person running it, not the committee, not a club admin, and not the app. The two downloadable files are separate too. The committee's results file has no member names and no per-vote times, and the who-voted file has no candidates.
Be clear with your club about the limits. This is secrecy from every club officer and from the app, but it is not cryptographic secrecy from ClubMeister’s own system administrators. A club that needs more than this should use paper ballots. Also, an admin can still put themselves on the lists while preparing, but this is visible to every voter before they vote, and nothing can be added once voting starts.
Small electorates leak by arithmetic. In a five-person board vote, a voter who knows their own vote can sometimes work out someone else’s from the totals. That is true of any secret ballot with very few voters, so it is worth knowing before you run a board-only vote.
Ending voting early or cancelling
It closes by itself at the scheduled time, or sooner: the moment the last eligible member has voted, the ballot closes automatically.
End voting now is available to whoever runs the ballot and to the election committee while voting is open.
- Open the ballot and tap End voting now.
- The confirmation tells you how many eligible voters have not voted yet and that they will no longer be able to. People running the ballot see that number, and committee members who do not run it do not.
- Voting closes immediately. The ballot shows who ended it and when, and the count unseals for the committee.
Ending early cannot be undone. It is also not cancelling: an ended ballot is counted and can be published.
To halt a ballot altogether, whoever runs it can tap Cancel ballot while voting is running. No further votes are accepted and no result is ever produced. Votes already cast stay sealed and are never counted.
A ballot nobody has voted in is still editable, so you can move its window and open it again with Edit ballot.
Results, ties and publishing
While voting is open the result card says The count is sealed. Once it has closed, the election committee sees each candidate’s votes and share, abstentions, votes cast, eligible voters and turnout, for example 31 of 44 (70.5%). Shares are calculated from votes for candidates only, with abstentions reported separately.
- Download results (CSV) is the committee’s main action. It saves the full count to validate the election and keep with the minutes.
- Publish the outcome is optional. It shows everyone who was eligible to vote, plus the club’s admins, who was elected (or that it tied) and the turnout. It never shows counts or shares. The confirmation quotes the exact sentence they will see, and publishing cannot be undone.
Publishing is optional because announcing the winner at the meeting is a complete workflow. The full count stays with the committee either way.
Ties. An exact tie is reported as a tie, and the app never breaks it. The committee can tap Start runoff, choose how long it runs (5, 10, 15, 30 or 60 minutes, with 15 preselected), and a second ballot opens with just the tied candidates and the same voters and committee. A new runoff has no votes yet, so Edit ballot can still move its window if you want it to open later. Following your club’s statutes instead is always an option.
Quorum. The app reports turnout but applies no quorum rule. Whether turnout is enough is up to your club’s statutes.
Several offices at one meeting means several ballots, each counted, run off and published on its own. A clear winner is never held up by a tie in another race. Use the same voter list and committee on each.
Ballots vs. polls in posts
Polls in posts are for light questions like who is bringing snacks. Ballots are for votes that must be confidential and controlled.
- Audience: a poll goes to the whole team through a post. A ballot is visible only to the people named on its lists.
- Secrecy: poll results show how people voted. A ballot never reveals an individual vote.
- Timing: a poll has no opening or closing time. A ballot opens and closes on a schedule and can be ended early.
- One vote: a ballot gives each eligible member exactly one vote, and totals stay sealed until it closes.
See Posts & polls for how polls work.
AI assistants and ballots
If an admin has connected an AI assistant (see AI assistant connections), it can prepare a ballot for you, tell you how many have voted if you run it, and end voting early if you are allowed to. It confirms the lists with you first. An assistant can never vote, and it cannot publish an outcome, start a runoff, or cancel or edit a ballot. Members vote in the app, where the vote stays secret.
Still need a hand?
Not sure how to set up your club’s election? We’re happy to help.