Anonymous Voting Event

Our clients use Lyyti in many different ways. One of the most popular questions has been: How to organise voting event in Lyyti so that each voter can vote only once?

There are two essential elements in voting: anonymity and restriction on one answer per voter. Usually these two cancel each other out: for example with Questionnaire tool you can answer anonymously, but then there are no restrictions on how many times one person can answer. This can be solved by creating two events in Lyyti: one for individualizing the voter and the other for gathering answers. 

Creating an anonymous voting event does require some Lyyti experience, but with the help of customer support we've managed to create a fine voting event together with a less experienced customer too :) This feature is for everyone to use and all it takes is a little bit of courage and Lyyti username that allows you to create events!

Because anonymity has to be guaranteed in a voting event, this realization is really innovative.

Realization 

You need to create two events: one could be called "Voting Event" and the other "Messaging Event"

Messaging Event is used for only sending invitation to vote and sending a personal voting link. 

Voting Event is used for collecting votes, it doesn't have any personal information.

1. Create Voting Event. Add standard questions "First name" and " Who do you vote for". You can create "Who do you vote for" question as a drop-down menu or a multiple choice (choose one) question. Select from question settings that it is not possible to edit the answer after confirmation. 
2. Open Excel and add an extra column containing "X" as many times as you have voters. So if there are 1000 voters, add 1000 "X"'s to the column A. 
3. Import "participants", i.e. X's from your Excel to the Voting Event. You will then have 1000 participants in your event, all have "X" as their first name. Now, hide the standard question "First Name" from registration page (by editing the question and removing language option in "
   Who can see this question: By registration page language). 
4. Lyyti has now created 1000 voters with first name "X". Each of them have their own personal voting code. 
5. Export now a list of personal registration codes. Go to Reports > Create Participant report > Select the fields you want to appear in the report: "Registration code" > and generate report. Open it in Excel. 
   You have personal links for 1000 voters that work only once. 

 Next, create Messaging Event

1. You need either a mobile phone number or an e-mail address for every 1000 voters so that you can send them their personal voting link. We recommend that you use either e-mails or mobile phone numbers, not both at the same time. Every voter should have the same contact information, either an e-mail, or a phone number.
2. Add either e-mail addresses or phone numbers to Excel, in column A. Copy those 1000 personal codes from the previously made Excel reports and paste them to the new Excel, in column B. 
   You'll have A-column with a contact information (either for sending an SMS message or an e-mail, but not both). 
3. You can now "add participants" to Messaging Event by importing these two columns (A and B) from your Excel. Define the details you have in each column as such: 
   A = e-mail address / mobile phone number
   B= Additional information
4. Now you will have 1000 contacts who have their personal voting link as "additional information". 
5. Create a message in which you will give information about the voting. Add a text: "Vote using your personal voting link" which is www.lyyti.in/%RECEIVER_ADDITIONAL_INFO%
   NB: If you are using the old e-mail editor, you need to write this voting link manually. Copy-pasting it e.g. from this article doesn't work. 
6. Lyyti will search personal registration link from voter's additional information. This personalised link is for Voting event. 
   Send your message to everyone. When they use their personal link, only voting question is shown to them. 
7. In order to guarantee anonymity, remove Messaging event when you are sure everyone has gotten their email.