Introduction

Decidim Elections enables a Decidim instance to run end-to-end auditable votings, may they be online, physical or a hybrid form of the two.

In order for a secure, end-to-end auditable voting to be run on Decidim, you will need to understand and set up the following things:

  • The Decidim Bulletin Board service, an independent application designed to provide services to Decidim instances;

  • The Election component, a Decidim component that takes care of the cycle of an election - from the communication with Decidim Bulletin Board to the virtual voting booth;

  • (optional) The Voting participatory space, a Decidim participatory space that provides additional features to an election (integration with physical election, census management, etc).

Decidim Bulletin Board

The Decidim Bulletin Board is a public, append-only log designed to allow Decidim instances to hold secure end-to-end auditable votings. Since it is an independent application, you will need to deploy an instance and connect your Decidim to it.

To find out more about how to deploy, set up and connect a Decidim Bulletin Board and connect it to your Decidim, read on in the dedicated page.

Election component

Election is a Decidim component that configures and runs any number of questions and answers in a auditable voting system.

Within an Election component, an admin can configure:

  • The voting period;

  • The election’s questions and answers;

The election component will also:

  • Manage the secure communication with the Decidim Bulletin Board connected to your Decidim instance to ensure the verifiability of the election;

  • (in an online election) create a safe virtual voting booth that will allow voters to fill, encrypt, audit and cast their ballot;

  • Allow the election Trustees to create decryption keys and carry out the tally procedures.

To know how to configure an Election component according to your election needs, check out the dedicated section.

Voting participatory space

While an Election component can be associated to any type of participatory space, when used in a Voting participatory space it can be integrated with the features this provides:

  • Integration with physical polling stations;

  • Census management;

  • Ballot styles (conditional questions);

  • Monitoring Committee.

To find out the detail of the features provided by a Voting in the dedicated section.