Docs
Run an election on Baalot.
How an institution goes from its first email to published results: setting up, adding members, building the ballot, and what voters see when it closes. Each step lists what it does not do.
Getting started
Baalot runs elections for student unions, departments, associations and shareholder AGMs. Admins work in the admin dashboard in a browser. Members vote in the Baalot app.
Write to [email protected] or request a demo. Baalot is in early access, so we bring institutions on one at a time.
We set up your institution and give its staff access to the admin dashboard at admin.baalot.site.
You add your roster, build the ballot and set when polls open and close. The sections below cover each step.
Set up your institution
An institution is the body that holds elections: a university, a union, a department, a company.
Run your election in the app opens the admin dashboard in a browser. Staff set up the institution, its sub-groups and its elections there.C26
Staff and community leaders sign in at admin.baalot.site with Continue with Google or an email and password. Any other account is turned away.C43
Google sign-in works only once the site address is on the sign-in provider's allowed list.
Some institution pages were imported into the directory. They say "Not on Baalot yet", show no verified tick or member count and stay out of the Verified list until they are claimed or have held an election on Baalot.C44
To claim an imported page, write to [email protected]. To ask for one to be taken down, write to [email protected].C44
Claims and removals are handled by email. There is no in-app claim flow and no promised reply time.
Members and eligibility
Who can vote comes from your institution's roster. No plan and no setting changes that.
Members join through the institution's approved roster, and the admin is the check on who is on it.C12
Invite in the app shares your institution's join link.C28
Sub-groups match by course code, so each ballot reaches the right department or faculty.
One ballot per institution member.C7
This holds only as well as the roster is accurate. Where a membership has no matric number recorded, one person holding two accounts can vote twice.
Running an election
Each election has positions, candidates, the sub-groups it is for and a voting window.
Add positions and candidates, choose which sub-groups each ballot is for, and set when polls open and close.C14
Candidates add a photo and a campaign video, uploaded (up to 200 MB) or linked.C40
Linked videos play inside the app only when they are direct video files. Other links open outside it.
When voting opens, members confirm their ballot in the app with their voting PIN.
Watch a live count of who has voted.C17
The count runs about a minute behind.
Pro leaders can attach a livestream link, shown beside the live count.C27
Only YouTube plays inside Baalot; other platforms open in their own app. The link is public to anyone who can see the election.
Shareholder AGMs
Companies and cooperatives can run their AGM votes on Baalot.
Each vote is weighted by the shares the member holds.
A member who cannot attend can name a proxy to vote for them.
Quorum is tracked live while voting is open.
Results and receipts
When the voting window ends, the election closes and its results are counted on the server.
Candidates hear "You won!", "It's a tie" or "Your results are in". Voters get the winners in the close notice.C41
Sent once per election. The result is the server's count, not a certification.
A Results are in card appears on Home, and winner lines show in Discover. Both are marked Provisional.C33
Provisional means the server's count, not a certification by your institution.
On the election page, Show who I voted for reads the sealed receipt kept on that phone.C39
Only on the phone that voted. No receipt on a phone means there is nothing to show there, not that a vote is missing.
How votes are protected
The security page follows one ballot from the moment it is cast and lists what each step does not protect against.
Your choice is encrypted before it is stored. If a ballot cannot be encrypted, it is refused rather than stored in the clear.C2
It does not hide your choice from Baalot, which holds the key because it computes the tally. Ballots cast before 9 August 2026 are not encrypted.
Every accepted ballot adds one entry to the election's audit chain, and each entry commits to the one before it.C3
Tamper-evident, not tamper-proof. Someone holding Baalot's server key could rewrite the chain.
Each ballot produces a receipt that only your device holds. Check my vote confirms your ballot is in the record without showing who you voted for.C6
It proves your ballot was recorded as cast, not that the tally counted it.
Plans
Voting is always free for members. Institutions start on Starter at no cost and move up by member count.
On Scale and Enterprise, members can sign in with your institution's own identity provider.C13
Not yet run end to end against a live institution provider. We test it with yours before your first election.
Support
Tell us when something goes wrong, from the app or by email.
Report a problem, under Me in the app, sends your report with the app version attached.C42
Up to 5 reports an hour per account. Reports reach the support inbox; there is no promised reply time.
For anything about your institution, write to [email protected]. For security issues, write to [email protected].