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Insights on voting & governance

Guides, best practices, and product updates from the vote.direct team.

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Several hands submitting ballots into one box, illustrating approval voting where each voter can back many candidates

Approval Voting Explained: Tick Everyone You Support

One ballot, no limit, tick everyone you would be happy to see elected. Approval voting is the simplest fix for vote splitting ever proposed, it counts as easily as plurality, and Fargo and St. Louis both use it. Here is the mechanics and the honest downside.

September 1, 2026Read

A grid of scored cards with verification marks, illustrating voters rating each candidate on a scale

Education

5 min read

Score Voting Explained: Rating Every Candidate Instead of Ranking Them

Ranking tells you the order. Scoring tells you the gap. Score voting asks members to rate each candidate independently on a scale, which captures strength of support that no ranked ballot can express. Here is how it counts and the one setting that trips people up.

September 1, 2026Read

A funnel narrowing many candidate cards down to a few elected seats, illustrating single transferable vote transfers

Education

5 min read

Single Transferable Vote Explained: Quotas, Surpluses and Transfers

STV is the method that makes a board actually look like its membership. It is also the one people find hardest to explain. Here is the quota, the surplus transfer and the exclusion rule in plain language, with a worked count and the three published rulebooks.

September 1, 2026Read

An ordered stack of ranked bars descending in weight, illustrating how Borda count awards points by position

Education

4 min read

Borda Count Explained: How Positional Points Pick a Consensus Winner

Borda does not ask who you love, it asks who everybody can live with. Each position in your ranking awards points, and the highest total wins. Here is the arithmetic, the Nauru variant, and the strategic weakness every board should know before adopting it.

September 1, 2026Read

A network of nodes connected to every other node, illustrating the head-to-head comparisons in a Condorcet count

Education

5 min read

Condorcet Voting Explained: The Candidate Who Beats Everyone Head to Head

Condorcet asks a question no other method asks: for every pair of candidates, which one would win a straight two-way race? Where an answer exists it is hard to argue with. Here is the pairwise matrix, the paradox that breaks it, and the three published fixes.

September 1, 2026Read

Bars of unequal height representing units with different entitlements, illustrating weighted voting

Education

4 min read

Weighted Voting Explained: When One Member Does Not Mean One Vote

Condos allocate by percentage interest. Co-ops allocate by shares. Strata allocate by unit entitlement. In all three, a ballot is not worth one vote, and getting the arithmetic wrong is how a result gets overturned. Here is how weighting actually works.

September 1, 2026Read

An aerial view of a community with a verified ballot marker over each home, illustrating one ballot per unit

Education

5 min read

Per-Unit Voting Explained: One Ballot Per Home, Whoever Owns It

Your bylaws almost certainly say one vote per lot. That single sentence creates three problems nobody thinks about until election day: two spouses on one deed, an investor who owns nine units, and what quorum is actually a percentage of.

September 1, 2026Read

Two vote totals measured against a horizontal threshold line, one clearing it and one falling short

Education

5 min read

Supermajority Thresholds Explained: Two-Thirds of What, Exactly?

A motion passes 2 votes to 1. Is that two-thirds? Stored as 66.67 percent it fails, which is wrong. Thresholds, bases and abstentions decide amendments and special assessments, and almost every dispute about them is really a dispute about the denominator.

September 1, 2026Read

A shareholder concentrating multiple votes onto one board candidate, illustrating cumulative voting

Education

4 min read

Cumulative Voting Explained: How It Works, With Examples

Cumulative voting lets a minority bloc guarantee board seats it could never win under ordinary voting. Here is how the math works, a worked example, and when to use it, plus a free calculator.

June 13, 2026Read

A paper ballot beside a digital ballot on a phone, representing an HOA switching from paper to online voting

Education

7 min read

How to Switch Your HOA to Online Voting (A Board Member's Toolkit)

You can see why digital voting makes sense. Now you have to convince the rest of your board and your neighbors. This toolkit gives you the honest pros and cons, a step-by-step transition plan, and word-for-word answers to every objection. Download it and bring it to your next meeting.

June 4, 2026Read

Five plain steps rising left to right, each holding one stage of an election, from a blank planning sheet to a certificate with a green seal at the top

Education

8 min read

How to Run an HOA Board Election: The Complete Step-by-Step Guide (2026)

Running an HOA board election involves 7 phases, dozens of legal requirements, and months of preparation. Most boards wing it. Here's the definitive guide, with state-specific deadlines, sample timelines, and the tools that eliminate much of the manual work.

February 19, 2026Read

Stack of geometric currency and gavel representing HOA special assessment voting requirements

Compliance

8 min read

Your HOA Is Voting on a $15,000 Special Assessment. Here's Why the Vote Might Not Be Legal.

Special assessments can cost homeowners $5,000 to $25,000+ per unit, and one procedural error can void the whole thing. State-by-state quorum thresholds, notice rules, and the five mistakes that get assessment votes thrown out in court.

February 19, 2026Read

Page 3 of 15

Explore by Use Case

Voting solutions for every organization

Deep dives into how vote.direct serves different industries and organization types.

HOA & Condo Boards

Compliant board elections with verified identity.

Non-Profits & Associations

Member votes and board elections with audit trails.

Union Elections

DOL-sourced officer-election guidance and platform record tools.

Churches & Religious Orgs

Congregation votes and pastor elections.

Creators & Communities

Verified polls for audience engagement.

PTA & School Voting

Accessible, multilingual voting for school decisions.

Startups & Teams

Transparent team decisions for distributed orgs.

Corporate Shareholder

Proxy votes and board elections with weighted voting.

Professional Associations

Chapter elections and standards adoption votes.

Cooperatives

One-member-one-vote with audit trails.

Property Management

Multi-community elections from one dashboard.

Credit Unions

Board-election tools and Article V support records.

Petitions & Signatures

Verified signature collection for recalls and amendments.

NYC Co-ops

Weighted shareholder voting with official BCL source links.

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Insights on voting & governance

All articles

Approval Voting Explained: Tick Everyone You Support

Score Voting Explained: Rating Every Candidate Instead of Ranking Them

Single Transferable Vote Explained: Quotas, Surpluses and Transfers

Borda Count Explained: How Positional Points Pick a Consensus Winner

Condorcet Voting Explained: The Candidate Who Beats Everyone Head to Head

Weighted Voting Explained: When One Member Does Not Mean One Vote

Per-Unit Voting Explained: One Ballot Per Home, Whoever Owns It

Supermajority Thresholds Explained: Two-Thirds of What, Exactly?

Cumulative Voting Explained: How It Works, With Examples

How to Switch Your HOA to Online Voting (A Board Member's Toolkit)

How to Run an HOA Board Election: The Complete Step-by-Step Guide (2026)

Your HOA Is Voting on a $15,000 Special Assessment. Here's Why the Vote Might Not Be Legal.

Voting solutions for every organization

HOA & Condo Boards

Non-Profits & Associations

Union Elections

Churches & Religious Orgs

Creators & Communities

PTA & School Voting

Startups & Teams

Corporate Shareholder

Professional Associations

Cooperatives

Property Management

Credit Unions

Petitions & Signatures

NYC Co-ops

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