Number of Eligible Voters - Demo Election & Quick Poll

[masiarek]

Add new functionality - add "Number of Eligible Voters" to "low security" and "low stakes elections / quick polls".

The expected number of voters is the anticipated number of people who will participate in the poll / voting.

Regular elections have voters (emails) and voter ID (we can calculate number of Eligible Voters on the fly - indirectly) - but quick poll and demo election are missing basic measures to control voting process (e.g. expected number of Voters / votes should be expected).

However, Quick Poll and Demo Elections (unlimited voting / polls) - we are missing a high level marker/parameter - how many anticipated ballots/voters to expect for this Poll / Election.

If we have an audience of 10 and we got 14 ballots in a poll / demo election - something is not right.

Having expected number of voters maybe useful in other areas / situations.

• counting abstentions (voters who participated in voting - ballot cast) but choose not to vote either for or against a proposal/option/candidate.
• quorum - abstentions can affect whether a quorum is reached or not, but they typically do not count towards the total vote count for decision-making.

Leaving "Number of Eligible Voters" as blank - we set a default, high number of voters or unlimited.

Number of voters and quorum requirement are used in election results reports / detailed statistical data:
Winner threshold is shown on the Results Tab.

• When the threshold is met, winners will be declared.
• When the threshold has not been met, winners are not declared and red text will outline the requirements.

example from ElectionBuddy:

[ArendPeter]

Neat, I see the value in this

I remember you made a similar issue a while back #501

Do you think we need "number of eligible voters" as well as "voter limit", or can this be the same?

[masiarek]

Scenario "Election with emails and or voter-id's

In this scenario the "number of eligible voters" should be probably good enough (no need for "voter limit) - since we have list of voters (emails or voter-IDs).

Additional Voters

However, we may need an extra bucket "Additional Voters" (config parameter) for safety margin (like 10% or specific number of extra number of voters that can join late?) - obviously this should be logged as somewhat irregular behavior.

Do we want to allow this and how to manage this?
Do we want to give to the admin a tool / solution to add later those unusual voters.
Integration points:

• "spoiled ballots" - Spoiling ballot - new feature request #746
• fee based service with large number of voters - Large number of voters / custom elections / high stakes #529

• admin entered x voter ID's (eligible voters) - but during voting we have a group of eligible voters attempting to join the election.
• now election is finalized/frozen and changes are rigid or impossible

Question: what should happen when we upload emails and we reach the limit of eligible voters?

• do nothing - admin should review emails (maybe this should be counted automatically and next to this number we should be showing the "expected number of voters"
• write to log / audit
• raise an error message "increase number of eligible voters - current limit "x', you are loading "y" new voters, current number of voters "z" in the database is "z".

Voter Limit

Scenario Show-of-hands / demo elections / unrestricted elections - without emails / quick polls

In this scenario - having a voter limit makes sense (adds complexity though: number of scenarios to maintain, test and document).
Probably the default should be "unlimited" - but if Admin wants to set a limit - this should be possible.

Voter Limit: explanation - you chose Low Integrity and direct Ballot Access / Quick Poll, so you can select how many people will be able to submit ballots instead of inputting/entering a voter list / voter IDs.

Question: what should happen if the limit has been reached

• error message (this election/poll expected x number of voters - you are voter number x+y - your ballot can no longer be accepted)
• popup window with a warning (this quick poll expected x number of voters - you are voter number x+y) - do you want to cast your aballot anyhow?
• do nothing (but than why admin requested "voter limit"?)