Glossary
The vocabulary of voting on VoteCast — methods, ballots, decision rules, the proposal lifecycle, and the settings that shape a decision. Link any term to share it.
Voting methods
- Poll Choose among options; the result is a tally of each option’s share, not a pass/fail.
- Approval Adopt or reject a motion on an Approve / Reject ballot, at a majority or two-thirds bar.
- Quick poll A fast Poll preset with results visible live and no deliberation.
- Operational A two-thirds Approval motion with a one-day deliberation period; results shown on close.
- Constitutional Consensus with a week of deliberation and a two-week objection window.
- Ranked Rank the options; instant-runoff elects the option a majority prefers.
Ballots
Decision rules
- Simple majority Plurality: reports each option’s share and the leading option — no pass/fail.
- Majority approval On an approve/reject vote, approve needs more than half of the decisive votes.
- Two-thirds approval On an approve/reject vote, approve needs at least two-thirds of the decisive votes.
- Consensus Any reasoned objection blocks the proposal; stand-asides do not. The shipped block-based strategy.
- Consensus −1 Like consensus, but a single objection does not block — it takes more than one.
- Consent Passes unless someone raises a validated paramount objection.
- Per-question Resolves each sub-question of a Common Ground ballot independently.
- Instant runoff Eliminate the lowest option and transfer its ballots until one option holds a majority.
Lifecycle
- Draft Created but not yet open — the proposer can still edit it.
- Deliberation A discussion window before voting opens; votes are not yet counted.
- Voting Voting is open and counted votes are being cast.
- Objection window An optional window after voting where objections can still be raised.
- Ratification An optional hold after voting where a passed outcome is confirmed before it takes effect.
- Closed All phases are complete and the outcome is final.
Outcomes
- Passed The motion was adopted — it met quorum and its pass threshold.
- Failed The decision was rejected.
- Blocked A sustained paramount objection stopped a consent decision.
- Tie Two or more options ended level with equal support.
- No quorum Too few people participated for the result to count.
- Indeterminate No valid determination was possible — for example, no votes were cast.
- Provisional Passed voting, but an objection window is still open.
- Recorded An informational result with no single pass/fail — used by Polls and Common Ground.
- Elected A ranked election resolved to a winning option.
- Not ratified Passed the vote, but a ratification period declined or vetoed it — so it did not take effect.
Method settings
- Quorum The minimum participation required for a result to count.
- Pass threshold The share of support a motion needs to pass.
- Minimum consent An optional floor of active agreement a consent proposal must clear to pass.
- Tally reveal When aggregate results become visible: live, on close, or hidden.
- Secret ballot Whether a voter’s identity is hidden from other members.
- Absence meaning On consent ballots, whether silence counts as consent or is ignored.
- Vote mutability Whether a member can change or retract their vote before voting closes.
- Objection window An optional asynchronous window after voting for raising objections.
- Eligibility Who may cast a counted vote — all members, or one or more committees.
- Voting power How much each vote counts — today, one person, one vote.
- Fallback rule A backup decision rule used when a consensus rule is blocked.
- Question contribution Who may add questions to a Common Ground ballot, and when.
Core terms
- Community A bounded group that governs itself with shared proposals and votes.
- Member A person who belongs to a community, as a member, facilitator, or admin.
- Facilitator A member who runs the community’s decisions, without power over people.
- Admin A member who can manage the community — people, committees, and settings.
- Committee A named group of members who decide certain votes on the community’s behalf.
- Proposal A single decision a community makes together.
- Choice One of the options a proposal offers voters (a proposal has at least two).
- Rationale Optional context explaining a proposal, separate from the text being voted on.
- Objection A reasoned "I cannot consent" on a consent ballot; it can block a decision.
- Stand-aside A non-blocking reservation on a consent ballot.
- Invite A shareable link that lets someone join a community.
- Verified community A community reviewed by the platform, lifting the limits placed on new ones.
- Proposal type A reusable template bundling a method and its defaults, maintained per community.