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Decline to Vote

The Decline to Vote policy lets voters formally abstain from an entire election at once, across all of its contests, instead of casting candidate selections. This is an election-level action: a voter either declines for the whole ballot or votes normally on every contest.

This feature is available only when the Election Event uses the Multiple Contests encryption policy. It does not apply to Single Contest encryption.

Note on Instant Runoff (IRV): The Instant Runoff counting algorithm is not currently supported with Multiple Contests encryption. Because Decline to Vote requires Multiple Contests encryption, it does not apply to elections that use IRV today. See Instant Runoff Algorithm for details on IRV limitations.

Prerequisites​

Before Decline to Vote can be used, both of the following must be configured:

  1. Election Event — Contest Encryption Policy: set to Multiple Contests in the Election Event Data tab under Advanced Configuration. See Election Event Data.
  2. Election — Decline to Vote Policy: set to Enabled on the individual Election Data tab under Advanced Configuration. See Election Data.

If the Election Event uses Single Contests encryption, the Decline to Vote Policy setting is hidden in the Admin Portal and the option is not offered to voters.

Admin Portal​

Enabling the policy​

  1. Open the Election Event and confirm Contest Encryption Policy is Multiple Contests.
  2. Open the target Election and go to the Data tab.
  3. Expand Advanced Configuration.
  4. Set Decline to Vote Policy to Enabled (the default is Disabled).
  5. Save the Election.

The policy is configured per Election, not per Contest. All contests in that Election share the same decline-to-vote behavior.

Tally results​

After a tally completes, declined ballots appear in election-level results:

  • In the Tally tab, the Elections results table includes a Total Declined to Vote column when at least one included Election has Decline to Vote enabled with Multiple Contests encryption.
  • Generated election reports include a Total Declined to Vote row in the election-level participation summary.

Declined ballots are not broken out in contest-level result tables. Contest tallies do not show a separate declined-to-vote count alongside valid, invalid, or blank votes.

Voting Portal​

When Decline to Vote is enabled for an Election, voters see an additional option on the Start Screen (before the voting questions):

  • Decline to Vote button — opens a confirmation dialog explaining that the voter will skip contest selection and proceed directly to review.
  • Start Voting button — the normal flow through all contests.

Decline to Vote flow​

  1. The voter clicks Decline to Vote and confirms in the dialog.
  2. The ballot is marked as declined for all contests in the Election.
  3. The voter is taken directly to the Review Screen, bypassing the contest voting screens.
  4. On the Review Screen, each contest shows Decline to vote instead of candidate selections.
  5. The voter encrypts and casts the ballot as usual (including optional audit, depending on configuration).

Normal voting flow​

If the voter clicks Start Voting instead, they proceed through contests normally. Choosing Decline to Vote after starting the normal flow is not supported — decline is only available from the Start Screen.

The destination of the Back button on the first voting screen is controlled by the Election-level Voting Screen Back Button Policy. When Decline to Vote is enabled, set that policy to Go to the election start screen so the decline option remains reachable; otherwise the Back button returns to the election selection screen (the default). See Election Data.

Whenever a voter arrives at the Start Screen, the ballot is reset to its initial state: all previous selections — including any previous decline selection — are cleared.

Results​

How declined ballots are counted differs between election-level and contest-level reporting.

Election level​

At the election level, a declined ballot:

  • Counts toward total voter participation (included in Total Voters / total votes cast for the Election).
  • Is reported separately as Total Declined to Vote, with its own count and percentage of the census.

This reflects that the voter participated in the election by formally declining, even though they did not select any candidates.

Contest level​

At the contest level, a declined ballot:

  • Is not counted as a valid vote.
  • Is not counted as an invalid vote (neither explicit nor implicit).
  • Is not counted as a blank vote.
  • Does not contribute to any candidate totals.

Contest-level participation and candidate result tables therefore exclude declined ballots from all vote categories. The decline is tracked only at the election level.

Summary​

AspectBehavior
Encryption policyMultiple Contests only
Counting algorithmNot compatible with IRV (IRV requires Single Contest encoding)
Configuration locationElection Data → Advanced Configuration → Decline to Vote Policy
Voter entry pointStart Screen Decline to Vote button
ScopeEntire Election (all contests at once)
Election-level resultsCounts as participation; shown as Total Declined to Vote
Contest-level resultsNot counted as valid, invalid, or blank