Voting System & Anonymity

Status: 🗓️ Planned · Priority: High · Created: 2026-03-16 · Tags: voting, core

Overview

Core voting functionality: participants can add options to a poll and cast votes. Supports both anonymous and non-anonymous modes as configured at poll creation. Votes are sent to the poll owner via PeerJS.

Design

Adding Options

Participants and above can add options while the poll is open
Options have text only (keep it simple)
Owner validates the sender has permission before accepting

Casting Votes

V1: single-choice (one vote per participant). Data model uses optionId: string which can later be extended to optionIds: string[] for multi-choice or a ranked array for ranked-choice.
Vote is signed with voter's private key for authenticity
In anonymous mode: owner records the vote but strips voterId before storing
In non-anonymous mode: voterId is stored alongside the vote
Vote changes: a participant can change their vote while the poll is open (replaces previous)

Results

Results are visible to all roles (viewers included)
Show: option text, vote count, percentage
Non-anonymous: also show who voted for what
Results update in real-time via PeerJS messages

Vote Flow

Participant                    Owner (relay)
    │                              │
    │─── poll:vote ───────────────▶│ validate permission
    │                              │ if anonymous: strip voterId
    │                              │ store vote
    │◀── poll:state:update ───────│ broadcast updated results

Plan

Build "add option" UI and message handler
Build voting UI (option list with vote button)
Implement vote submission (sign + send to owner)
Owner-side vote processing (validate, anonymize if needed, store)
Build results display (bar chart or simple percentage view)
Implement vote change (replace previous vote)

Test

Participant can add an option
Participant can cast a vote
Anonymous vote does not leak voter identity
Results update in real-time across connected peers
Vote change replaces (not duplicates) previous vote
Viewers can see results but not vote