Gravity Forms
+ Elections & Ranked Ballots

Clubs, associations, unions, residents' associations, school councils and boards hold elections every year, and more and more of them want members to vote online. A normal form is not enough for that: anyone could fill it in, the same person could vote twice, the answers sit next to the voter's name, and ranked ballots still have to be counted by hand. The Gravity Forms Elections & Ranked Ballots add-on turns a form into a proper election on your own site.

You add a voter roll from a CSV of e-mail addresses or member numbers, or from WordPress users by role, and each voter gets a personal one-time ballot link by e-mail through a Gravity Forms notification. Members can also vote while logged in. Every vote goes into a secret ballot box: it is stored under a random ID, apart from the record that the member has voted, and the server refuses a second ballot from the same voter, a reused or forged link and any vote outside the opening and closing time.

Each position on the ballot is a field: pick one, pick up to N or rank the candidates by drag and drop, with buttons or from the keyboard, with short bios, photos and an optional write-in. The add-on counts with plurality, approval, instant-runoff (with a round-by-round table) or single transferable vote for several seats, follows a published tie-break rule and keeps blank and spoiled ballots apart. Results stay hidden until voting closes; then they appear on the admin page and wherever you place the results shortcode, together with turnout, quorum, an anonymous ballot CSV and an audit report. Your organisation runs the election under its own rules; the add-on gives you the tools and a transparent count.

Each election is a Gravity Forms form with one Election ballot field per position. When a member opens their ballot link, the add-on checks the link's signature, the voter roll and the voting time before it shows the ballot, and checks everything again when the ballot is submitted. A valid ballot is cast in one step: the voter's has-voted flag is switched on only if it was off, and the choices go into the add-on's own ballot box under a random 32-character ID, with no name, account, address, link or time. The Gravity Forms entry never holds the vote and is removed, and the usual submission e-mails are not sent for a ballot. After the close the add-on counts every position: plurality and approval in one round; instant-runoff round by round, eliminating the candidate with the fewest votes until one has a majority of the continuing ballots; single transferable vote with the Droop quota and fractional transfer of surpluses. Ties are broken by the earlier rounds and then by a lot drawn from a published seed. The audit report lists every round and the SHA-256 of the anonymous ballot CSV, so anyone can check the count. Unlike public likes or star ratings on entries, or polls that show live results, this add-on keeps a voter roll, one vote per voter, a secret ballot and ranked counting. Everything runs on your own server — the add-on makes no outside HTTP request beyond the licence and update checks.