A bespoke election portal for your works council, members' council, shareholders' meeting, cooperative or association. Secret ballots, a watertight audit trail and turnout you don't have to fight for, built for voting processes that must be legally and organisationally sound.
We do not build software for general political elections. For the municipal council, House of Representatives, Provincial States, water board and European Parliament, the Dutch Electoral Act prescribes paper and a red pencil. The legislator is not open to digital voting, and we will not offer workaround solutions for it. For election offices that support municipalities in preparing and following up on elections, we can supply process software, but never for the vote itself.
What we do build for: all voting processes within organisations. Works council elections, co-determination bodies at universities and universities of applied sciences, MR and GMR elections in education, shareholder votes and proxy voting at AGMs, candidate selections within political parties, congress votes and member ballots, cooperative boards, owners' association meetings, trade union board elections, and all sports, arts and hobby clubs that elect their chair, treasurer or audit committee by ballot. Online polling platforms for market research fall under the same architecture.
A good voting platform is not Google Forms with a "submit only once" button. Secret ballots, enforcement of one person, one vote, an audit trail that shows that a vote was cast but not what it was, and compliance with your articles of association or the relevant part of Book 2 of the Dutch Civil Code: all of that only ends up in the architecture if you have it designed in from the start.
Depending on the type of vote, the number of eligible voters and the legal sensitivity. In the first conversation we determine which variant suits your articles of association and your organisation.
One election, one electoral roll, one voting flow. Designed for an association electing its board, an owners' association voting on a maintenance decision, or an educational institution running an MR election. Magic link per eligible voter, secret ballot, automatic counting and a published results page.
For cooperatives, trade unions, professional associations and political parties that run several ballots a year. A single member database managed year-round, a voting module set up for each election, candidate pages with biography and manifesto, and reminder emails. Includes weighted voting where your articles of association require it.
For organisations that offer elections as a service: election bureaus, umbrella organisations or administrative firms that manage works council elections for dozens of employers. Multi-tenant architecture in which each election has its own space, its own branding, its own electoral roll and its own articles-of-association settings. For the end user, one environment; for your administrator, a dashboard across all ongoing ballots.
Every voting platform consists of a combination of standard building blocks that we configure specifically for your voting process. You choose which modules are in scope. Almost every project starts with the core (electoral roll, voting flow and counting) and expands to whatever your articles of association or organisational form require.
The technical enforcement that each eligible voter casts at most one vote, without the system being able to see who has voted for what. For weighted ballots (as in some cooperatives or among shareholders), the voting weight from the electoral roll is applied during counting, not when the vote is cast.
Votes are separated from the voter's identity immediately on receipt. We use a two-table architecture (a ballot table and a voter table) with no relationship between them. Even a database administrator with full access cannot link an individual vote to a person.
An immutable log with timestamps showing when an eligible voter cast their vote, from what type of device and from which IP range. It does not record what was voted for, only that a vote was cast. That is exactly what you need to demonstrate the validity of the election, no more and no less.
For elections with more than a yes/no choice: a page for each candidate with a photo, short biography, motivation and manifesto. Voters can compare candidates before casting their vote. For list elections, also list leaders and party context.
Voting can be binary (tick one name), preferential (ranking in order of preference), or multiple choice (choose up to three from seven). For elections in which several seats are to be allocated, we can apply D'Hondt, Hare/Niemeyer or a method set out in your own articles of association, as you prefer.
For elections where you need to be certain that a vote comes from a specific natural person: iDIN or DigiD for identification. For lighter votes, a magic link to a verified email address or an SMS code to a registered mobile number will suffice.
A voting process must be usable by every eligible voter, not only those with a mouse and a large monitor. Full keyboard navigation, screen reader support, sufficient colour contrast and large tap targets on mobile. For government and education contexts, this is not optional.
Dutch, English, French and German as standard. For cooperatives with overseas members or trade unions with migrant workers, we can add further languages. The entire voting flow, including candidate pages and help text, is translated, so there is no half-translated interface with Dutch help text in an English version.
Device fingerprinting, IP range monitoring and behavioural analysis to detect misuse: several eligible voters from the same device, an unusual spike from a single location, or a voter who completes the entire flow within a second. Suspicious votes are flagged for manual review, not silently accepted.
For each voter list, an invitation round, followed by one or two reminders for those who have not yet voted. Sent by email or SMS, with a turnout dashboard so you can see during the voting period how things are progressing and whether you need to step up outreach. Templates for invitation, reminder and thank-you emails in each language.
Results can be continuously visible (transparent voting with a turnout barometer) or only after the ballot closes (a classic election with suspense). For list elections, the system calculates the seat allocation immediately using your chosen allocation method.
After closure, a results page with absolute numbers, percentages, turnout and, ideally, a clear explanation of the calculation method used. Publicly accessible for elections that should be transparent (trade union board, association), or restricted for votes intended only for members.
At the end of a vote, the platform delivers a PDF with the turnout, the result, the calculation method and the audit trail summary. This document goes straight into your minutes or annual report, with no loose screenshots and no copy-and-paste work.
The voting processes for which we have built custom solutions over recent years, or for which we regularly provide advice. In each of these contexts, digital voting can, when carefully designed, be fairer than sending ballot papers back and forth by email.
Works council elections for employers with dozens to thousands of employees, participation councils in primary and secondary education, joint participation councils at umbrella level, and client councils in healthcare. A platform that supports not only the election itself, but also the statutory deadlines, the candidacy phase and the objection procedure. Suitable for combination with software for municipalities when a public employer runs its own works council election.
Shareholder meetings with proxy voting for BVs and NVs under Book 2 of the Dutch Civil Code, board elections for energy, housing and agricultural cooperatives, and votes at owners' meetings under the Dutch Condominium Act (VvE-wet) and the Building Decree. Includes weighted voting based on shareholding or fractional ownership, and valid proxies for those who cannot attend in person. Follows the procedures your notary or director is already familiar with, and, if you wish, uses a custom case management system to handle objections and minutes.
For political parties: internal candidate selection, list ordering, congress votes and member consultations. For market research agencies and media organisations: polling platforms for representative panels or open public polls. Both rely on the same voting infrastructure, but differ considerably in the strictness of identity verification required and in how transparent interim results may be. We also build support software for election offices that help municipalities prepare and run a paper-based election, without digitising the voting itself.
A working election platform plus everything needed to run your own voting processes, without having to return to a supplier for every subsequent election.
With OneDayBuild, we turn your idea into something tangible in one day for €1,150, so you can see whether further development is worth the investment. Decide to go ahead with the full build? Then we credit the full cost.
Explore OneDayBuild →Honestly, for a one-off board election with thirty members, a SaaS tool such as a specialised voting service provider, or even a paid poll feature within your existing membership administration, is usually the cheapest option. Custom development only becomes worthwhile in one of the following situations.
Trade unions, cooperatives, umbrella organisations or election bureaus that run several elections a year. A repeatable flow, a shared membership database and a uniform look and feel pay for themselves within one to two election cycles compared with a per-election SaaS subscription.
Voting weight per member, selection numbers, list linkages, thresholds or a custom allocation method. The more specific your articles of association, the harder it becomes to fit a SaaS tool around them. At some point, bespoke development is simply faster than an awkward workaround.
Synchronisation with your membership administration, HR system or CRM so that voter rolls are always up to date. For more extensive integrations, we are happy to point you to our smart API integrations as a starting point, which help you avoid manual imports and disputes over voting rights on election day.
An election held under your own URL and in your own branding feels familiar to eligible voters, which demonstrably increases turnout. A generic branded portal with a recognisable SaaS logo does the opposite, especially for sensitive votes.
A conversation in which we understand your voting process: who is eligible to vote, how large the electorate is, what your articles of association say or which part of Book 2 of the Dutch Civil Code applies, and which method you use to calculate the result. By the end of this conversation, we have a clear picture of the legal and organisational conditions.
A workshop with your secretariat plus interviews with a handful of eligible voters. The result: a documented voting flow, the architecture for secret ballots, the modules in scope and a screen flow for both the voter side and the administrator side.
We build in two-weekly sprints, each delivering a working build. Halfway through, we run a trial election with a test electoral roll, so we can walk through both the user experience and the count before going live. External penetration test in the final sprint.
For your first real election, we are on standby: during the opening hours of the polls, our team monitors turnout and logs, and any fault is addressed immediately. After closing, the system counts automatically and produces the results page and minutes file. Afterwards, the platform moves to a maintenance contract or is managed independently by your team.
What clients typically want to know before starting an election platform.
A free, no-obligation half-hour introductory call. We listen to your voting process, ask about your articles and organisational structure, and give direction on the architecture where it helps you, even if it doesn't ultimately go with us.
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