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.