How to test a Live Conference election setup
Once you are done with setting up your election, you should now proceed to test it. To test your election setup, you will start by sending out the email template you just created in the previous page.
To test a template for an individual voter, go to the “Voters” tab.
Click on the magnifying glass of the voter you created earlier (“John Doe”).
Click the “@ Send email” button below the box containing the voter’s details.
Leave “Assembly Voting” as the text in the “Sender” field.
Under “Template,” choose the item “Login Info” from the dropdown menu.
Click “Send Email.” The email should be in the Demo voter’s inbox shortly afterwards.
Open your e-mail client to access the email from Assembly Voting entitled: “Here is the login information for Election 2024.”
Click the button “Go to login,” which will then open a new browser tab with the election front page.
Video Guide
The next step in the process is to test the conductor panel flow while also casting a vote. For that, you need to have the conductor panel and the voter’s frontend open simultaneously.
Open the Conductor panel in a different tab in your browser by right-clicking on the “Conductor panel” tab in the menu on the left and selecting “open in new tab”.
*As the name suggests, the conductor panel is the place from which the election is conducted by making use of the slides we have set up before.
Go back to Electa while making sure to keep the conductor panel open.
Click the “Voting frontend” button from the “Frontend” dropdown menu.
Once the election front page is open, check that the “Username” field has been pre-filled and matches the code in the email you previously sent out.
Under “Password,” insert the birthdate from the “John Doe” voter: 01011999.
Sign in as the voter. Once you successfully log in, you screen should look like this:
*Make sure to have your voter’s window open in a separate tab from the conductor panel. This will make it easier to switch between the two.
In the conductor panel window, click on the first slide in the left menu under “Slide navigation.” It should now display the first presentation slide with the welcome title. Make sure that this is the same in the voter’s window.
Conductor panel
Voter’s screen
Hit “Next >” in the conductor panel window to move to the next slide. This will change the slides for the voter too. Switch between the two open tabs to confirm that this occurs.
Conductor panel
Voter’s screen
Click the green “Open” button in the conductor panel to start the voting process.
Return to the voter’s window.
Cast a ballot by clicking on the desired option, and hitting “Continue.”
Click “Continue” to save your choice. It will lead you to a confirmation screen, where you click “Submit vote.” You will then see a receipt confirming the reception of your ballot.
While this is happening, you can see a progress bar indicating the progress of the voting both in the conductor’s panel and on the voter’s screen.
When the voting is complete, hit the yellow button “Close now” in the conductor panel to close the voting session. The voters will then no longer be able to vote.
Click “Calculate result” to generate the vote results.
*You may track the progress under the “The result is being calculated” bar.
Once the results are ready, you can preview them before publishing them to the voters by clicking on the “Voting rounds” button at the bottom of the page.
Click on “Test Vote” under “Finished round” to see the results of that vote.
When you are ready to share the results with the voters, click “Make public” to make the results visible to the voters. The results will then be displayed in the slide for all present voters and any observers to see.
When the election is finalized, click “Stop presentation.”
Hit the “Exit mode” button to close the conductor panel and the election. This will stop the presentation for both the conductor and the voters, which means that the slides will no longer be visible.
The voter can sign out by closing the browser window or by clicking on the exit symbol, which will direct them back to the sign in page of the election event.
You have now tested your election event setup. Make any necessary changes to your event before you proceed to the actual election event.
Video Guide
While testing, you might come across things which you need to add or change before you are ready to prepare for the election event with real data. For example, you may need to:
Make changes to the contests.
Update the voter data and exchange test data with the real data you need.
Update your email template with new information.
Update or create new presentation and/or ballot slides.
Once you have created the contest and it has been linked to the voting round, any further changes to the contest are blocked. To be able to make changes to the contest afterwards, you must use the option “Clear Election.” This function will delete all voter data, votes cast, voting rounds, threshold ceremony, and reports.
You should only use this function in the testing stage, specifically after you are done testing your election and are ready to set up the real election data. NEVER use this function when your real election event is already set up.
It is important you pay close attention to the following steps, as any wrong steps might affect or remove your election’s configuration.
Go to “Summary” and click on the red “Clear Election” button.