Advanced Election Rules

The “Advanced Election Rules” option is a Pro feature that you can either use under the guidance of our Support team or have configured by an Election Manager. Just get in touch with our Support team (support@polyas.de) or your election admin quoting your project ID.

Note: this feature is available for POLYAS Online Elections.

Configuration options for ballot papers

After adding the “Advanced Election Rules” feature to your election, you can define various additional settings in the ballot paper section under “Rules”:

Votes for lists and votes for candidates

Apart from the total number of votes, which applies to the entire ballot, you can also define other kinds of vote counts for the ballot paper type “Other election types”:

• Votes for lists
• Votes for candidates

Votes for lists are the total number of votes that may be cast on the ballot paper in the list headers.

Votes for candidates are the total number of votes that may be cast for candidates on the ballot paper.

List votes

In addition, the “Advanced Election Rules” feature can be used to configure settings for the “Total list votes” in each list. First navigate to “Lists” in the ballot paper section and then to the cogwheel symbol to the left of the list where you want to make your settings.

The Total list votes is the total of votes that may be allocated to this list in the list header (“Votes per list” in the Online Election Manager) and to the candidates on this list (“Votes on this list” in the Online Election Manager).

For example: A maximum of seven list votes may be cast: six per list, four on the list and three per row. On the ballot paper, three checkboxes appear next to each candidate and six in the list header.

In this example, eligible voters can then cast a maximum of seven votes for List 1, no matter whether they are allocated to the candidates in the list or in the list header. By limiting the votes within the list to four, voters can give a maximum of four of the seven list votes to candidates and the remaining three would then have to be allotted to the entire list in the list header. In this case, a maximum of six votes would be possible.

Using Votes per list and Votes on the list, you can determine how the list votes are allocated to the list header and the candidates on the lists. Votes per row allows you to define the maximum number of votes a single candidate can receive.

More optional features with Advanced Election Rules

Counting candidate votes as list votes

Under “Advanced options” in the ballot rules, you’ll find the advanced election rule “Count candidate votes as list votes”. If this rule has been applied to your election, all votes given to candidates will also be counted as votes for the list.

You can also decide whether

• only one vote per ballot is to be allocated to the list
• or whether all candidate votes are to be added to the list votes.

After the election, a PDF of the results will show the total number of votes for the list itself and for the candidates on the list.

Allocating votes automatically

In the advanced ballot paper rules, you can also activate the “Allocate votes automatically” feature.

Note: this feature is only available for the ballot paper type “Other election types”.

During the election, your eligible voters will have the option of clicking on a list to cast their available votes automatically.

After activating the option, you can decide whether allocation should be

• in descending order
• or equally.

Descending allocation

In this case, the votes are allocated to the candidates on the list so that each candidate receives the maximum number of votes possible until all the votes have been assigned.

Equal allocation

In this case, the votes are allocated to the candidates on the list so that each candidate initially receives one vote and then another vote in turn until all the votes have been assigned.

Additional option: “Skip previously ticked candidates”.

If you activate this option, candidates already ticked manually will be skipped. In the case of descending allocation, activating this option will result in equal allocation.

Exclusive vote allocation

If you book the Advanced Election Rules, you’ll also find “Exclusive vote allocation” under “Advanced options”, which you can activate using the slider. If this feature is activated for your election, voters must decide whether to allocate their votes in the list header or cast their votes as they wish among the candidates.

If voters cast their votes in the list header during the election, they won’t be able to use the candidate checkboxes to cast their votes. The auto-filling option is then greyed out as well.

If voters allocate votes at candidate level, they won’t be able to click on the checkboxes in the list header.