Intro to Polls

Polls help you make decisions and progress discussion to an outcome.

  • Involve the right people to make better decisions
  • Get engagement, test ideas, listen and sense, identify priorities, and clarify issues, even if the solution might not yet be apparent
  • Set a deadline, prompt people who haven’t participated, and state an outcome
  • Flexibly use decision making processes that work for your group

There are many types of decision tools in Loomio and many ways to use them.

Poll types

Loomio includes a range of poll types to support participation in decision making. You can configure polls to suit a particular decision process or voting method.

Sense check: To ask people for feedback, questions and concerns before moving to a decision.

Proposal: To raise a proposal and make a decision.

Simple poll: A simple poll to ask people which option or options they approve.

Time poll: Find the best time to meet, or to schedule an event. Like Doodle without all the ads…

Opt-in: Find volunteers or participants to help or join a working group.

Score poll: Find the degree of support for each option.

Dot vote: Find degree of support by asking people to allocate a budget of points to options.

Ranked choice: Rank a list of options in order of preference — useful for elections.

New poll type: Configure the poll type you need with custom terminology, options and settings.

Proposal

The proposal poll is the heart of Loomio. A proposal helps convert a discussion into a clear, practical outcome.

For example, someone suggests a course of action and invites people to respond by voting agree, abstain or disagree.

As people vote, they can give a reason why they have voted this way. You can see where everyone else stands on the matter, and why. If someone contributes some new information or a strong opinion you can change your vote, if you wish.

In this way you can use proposals to prompt people for a response, uncover new information, and build shared understanding - to help your group make a better, more informed decision.

A proposal and associated discussion, creates a record of how the decision came about.

All poll types have a similar structure

As you start using polls, you will notice the poll setup, running and closing follow a similar pattern:

Set up poll:

  • Give the poll a title
  • Assign a category tag
  • Describe the poll question, and how you want people to vote
  • Configure poll options
  • Set a closing deadline
  • Invite people

In the "Settings" tab you can also set:

  • Hide results, until vote is cast or poll closes
  • Anonymous voting
  • Vote reason to required, optional or disabled
  • Reminder that poll is closing soon to nobody, author, undecided voters or all voters

Running poll:

  • People vote and add a reason (optional)
  • Results are updated live
  • People can change their vote if new info emerges
  • A reminder is sent to people who haven’t voted

Poll closed:

  • The proposal or poll closes, and everyone can see the results
  • The author sets an outcome, notifying everyone of what will happen next.