Open a vote

Open a vote

A vote lets the equity members of a syndicate decide on something share-weighted, such as buying a new tow bar, changing insurer, or agreeing next year’s hangar contract. Votes are always yes/no with a share-weighted majority threshold.

Before you start

• You must be an admin.
• The syndicate should have at least one active equity member for a vote to be worth opening; members with no shares never see the vote at all, and can’t cast a ballot.
• You must be online. Opening a vote sends a notification to every equity member.

Steps

1. Open the syndicate.
2. Go to the Admin tab and tap Votes under the Members & governance heading. Every member can also reach the same list from Votes on the My Syndicate card on the Dashboard tab. Route: /syndicates/:syndicateId/votes.
3. Tap Open vote.
4. Fill in Question (e.g. Should we buy a new tow bar?) and, if it helps, Description (optional) with context, supplier quotes, or links members need to make up their minds.
5. Set when the vote closes. This is two fields, not one: Closes is a date picker and Closing time is a separate time picker. Together they default to 7 days from today at 23:59. A preview line below them reads “Closes {date and time} (your local time)”. The vote closes at that exact moment in your own timezone, and the app tallies the result within a few minutes; you can set a closing time just a few hours away for a quick vote.
6. Decide whether to make it a private vote with the toggle (off by default). By default, fellow shareholders can see how everyone voted; turn on Private vote and only you can see your own vote, though everyone still sees the final outcome, never who voted which way.
7. Tap Open vote.

Desktop

Mobile

8. You land on the vote detail screen, and every active equity member gets a Vote opened notification (push and email by default).

How the result is tallied

When the vote closes (either automatically at the chosen date and time, or manually if you tap Close vote), the result is computed live from the ballots:

• Each ballot is weighted by the member’s shares at the moment of close, not at the moment of cast.
• The vote passes if more than 50% of the total active equity shares are cast for Yes. Non-votes are an implicit No; silence isn’t agreement.
• Members who have lost shares, gone former, or been removed since the vote opened drop out of both the numerator and the denominator.

If you change your mind about the question or the timing, tap Cancel vote on the vote’s detail screen. This is different from Close vote: Close records a Yes/No result from whatever’s been cast so far; Cancel withdraws the vote entirely, records no result, and can’t be reopened.

Offline behaviour

The Open vote button watches connectivity. When the device is offline, it disables and shows Opening a vote needs a connection. Try again when you’re online in a snackbar.

If it goes wrong

• No equity members received the notification: only members with shares greater than zero are notified. Open Admin → Members and check that the people you expect to vote still hold shares.
• The vote closed sooner than I expected: the vote closes at the exact date and time you picked, in your own timezone; double-check the time you set, not just the date.
• I made a typo in the question: there’s no edit. Cancel the vote and open a new one with the corrected question.

See also

• Cast your vote — the member-side flow
• Vote — what a vote is, the share-weighting rule, and the auto-close behaviour