Terms & Conditions

Please read these terms carefully before using TapVoter. By using our service, you agree to be bound by these terms and conditions.

Free Elections
Secure Platform
Privacy First

Service Agreement

Effective Date: October 7, 2026

Important: Free Elections for Everyone

TapVoter elections are and will remain free. We offer 5 voting methods, 30 languages, and up to 10,000 voters per election at no cost. TapVoter Pro subscriptions and advertising on our marketing pages help sustain the platform.

1.Acceptance of Terms

By accessing or using TapVoter ("the Service"), you agree to be bound by these Terms and Conditions. If you do not agree to these terms, please do not use our Service.

These terms apply to all users of the Service, including election administrators, voters, and visitors.

We reserve the right to update these terms at any time. Continued use of the Service after changes constitutes acceptance of the new terms.

2.Service Description

Two Platforms, One TapVoter:

  • app.tapvoter.com — The current TapVoter platform (Cloudflare Workers, BetterAuth, Polar.sh billing)
  • tapvoter.com — Marketing site only. Sign-in, dashboards and voting are on app.tapvoter.com.

TapVoter is a platform that enables organizations to run online elections, polls, quizzes and surveys. The Service includes:

  • Election creation and configuration tools with draft auto-save
  • 5 voting methods: Direct, Ranked Choice (IRV), STAR, Approval, and Multi-Winner
  • Polls, quizzes and surveys with free tiers, and TapVoter Pro ($4.99/mo or $49/yr)
  • 30 language presets with custom label overrides
  • Voter management with CSV import and 9-character alphanumeric keys
  • Voting with single-use voter keys, checked against a stored SHA-256 hash
  • Automatic results calculation, with results sealed until voting closes by default for new elections
  • Custom branding (logos and colors)
  • Printable reports and CSV exports

Technical Limitations:

  • Voter keys are 9 characters (36^9 possible combinations)
  • Rate limits apply to sign-in, voting and submission endpoints
  • Sessions last up to 7 days and are refreshed while you use the app
  • File upload limits for candidate photos and logos

The Service is provided "as is" and we make no guarantees about continuous, uninterrupted, or error-free operation.

3.Account Registration & Security

To create elections, you must register for an administrator account. You agree to:

  • Provide accurate, current, and complete registration information
  • Verify your email address before creating elections
  • Maintain the security of your password and account
  • Notify us immediately of any unauthorized access
  • Accept responsibility for all activities under your account
  • Not share your account credentials with others

Administrator Responsibilities:

  • Securely distribute voter keys to authorized voters only
  • Ensure compliance with applicable election laws and regulations
  • Delete elections containing sensitive data when no longer needed
  • Not attempt to discover how individual voters voted
  • Respect rate limits and fair use of the platform
  • Verify election settings before activation
  • Handle voter communications and support
  • Monitor election integrity and report suspicious activity

We reserve the right to suspend or terminate accounts that violate these terms or engage in fraudulent activity.

4.Acceptable Use Policy

You agree to use TapVoter only for lawful purposes and in accordance with these terms. You may not:

  • Use the Service for any illegal or unauthorized purpose
  • Attempt to interfere with or disrupt the Service
  • Attempt to gain unauthorized access to any systems or accounts
  • Upload malicious code, viruses, or harmful content
  • Use the Service to harass, abuse, or harm others
  • Misrepresent your identity or affiliation
  • Conduct fraudulent or manipulated elections
  • Run government elections — public elections run by or on behalf of a national, state, provincial, regional or local government, or any election to public office or on a public referendum
  • Run highly sensitive votes where a breach of ballot secrecy or integrity could put voters at risk or carry serious legal consequences
  • Violate any applicable laws or regulations
  • Use automated systems or bots without permission
  • Reverse engineer or attempt to extract source code

TapVoter has not been certified or independently audited for government or high-stakes elections. If your vote is governed by law or by your organization's rules, you are responsible for confirming with your legal counsel that TapVoter meets those requirements. Your use of TapVoter is voluntary and at your own risk.

Prohibited Technical Activities:

  • Attempting to guess, brute-force or reuse voter keys
  • Attempting to link ballots to the voters who cast them
  • Deliberately exceeding or evading rate limits
  • Using automated voting bots or scripts
  • Uploading files disguised as images to bypass validation
  • Attempting to identify individual voters from anonymous data
  • Manipulating tabulation algorithms or results
  • Accessing other users' elections without authorization
  • Attempting to bypass session security
  • Attempting to bypass Cloudflare Turnstile verification
  • Creating fake elections to harvest voter information

5.Security Infrastructure

TapVoter employs multiple layers of security to protect elections, polls, and user data:

Authentication & Bot Protection

  • BetterAuth: Session-based authentication with Google OAuth and email OTP (one-time password) sign-in
  • Cloudflare Turnstile: Bot detection on sign-in, poll, quiz and survey submissions, and the contact form
  • Rate Limiting: KV-based rate limiting on critical endpoints (vote submission, key generation, storage uploads, contact forms)

Data Protection

  • Voter Key Security: Single-use keys checked against a SHA-256 hash; keys are visible only to the election's organisers and their collaborators
  • Encryption: All data encrypted in transit (HTTPS/TLS with HSTS preload) and at rest
  • Content Security Policy: Strict CSP headers preventing XSS, clickjacking, and content injection
  • Input Validation: Schema validation on API endpoints — invalid payloads are rejected before processing
  • CSV Safety: Formula injection prevention on all CSV exports

Infrastructure

  • Cloudflare Workers: Edge-deployed serverless runtime with global CDN and DDoS protection
  • Cloudflare D1: SQLite-based database for all structured data
  • Cloudflare R2: Object storage for images (logos, candidate photos)
  • Security Headers: HSTS, X-Content-Type-Options, X-Frame-Options, Referrer-Policy, Permissions-Policy

Audit History

TapVoter's security is reviewed regularly through internal reviews covering voting algorithm integrity, ownership enforcement, input validation, rate limiting, authentication and data privacy. Findings are tracked and resolved systematically. TapVoter has not been independently audited or certified by a third party.

6.How We Keep Elections Free

TapVoter elections are free for all users. To sustain our service and cover operational costs:

TapVoter Pro

Polls, Quizzes and Surveys each have a free tier. TapVoter Pro ($4.99/mo or $49/yr) unlocks their full features and adds optional extras for elections — such as keeping election data beyond the free retention period, sending voter key emails, write-in candidates, kiosk mode and removing TapVoter branding. Subscriptions are processed through Polar.sh, a merchant of record. Pro revenue funds our servers, security and ongoing development.

Advertising

The tapvoter.com marketing pages show ads served by Google AdSense. No ads appear in the TapVoter app, on a ballot, or while a vote is being cast.

Our Promise: Running an election — all five voting methods, voter keys, results and exports — remains free. Pro extras are optional and never required to conduct an election.

7.Analytics and Tracking

To improve our Service and understand usage patterns, we use analytics tools:

Google Analytics

We use Google Analytics to:

  • Understand how users navigate our platform
  • Identify technical issues and improve performance
  • Measure the effectiveness of new features

Google Analytics is not loaded on ballot, poll, quiz or survey pages, and never receives voting choices. You can opt-out of Google Analytics by installing the Google Analytics Opt-out Browser Add-on.

Google Ads

The tapvoter.com marketing site (home page, comparisons, use-case pages, guides and blog posts) displays advertising served by Google AdSense. Google and its partners may use cookies or similar identifiers to serve and measure those ads; you can review and change your choices at Google My Ad Center. No ad is shown on a ballot or at any point while a vote is being cast — no voting, account or election-management page exists on tapvoter.com any more. The current platform (app.tapvoter.com) does not display third-party advertisements.

8.Intellectual Property & Data Ownership

The Service and its original content, features, and functionality are owned by TapVoter and are protected by international copyright, trademark, and other intellectual property laws.

What You Own:

  • All election configuration and settings you create
  • Uploaded content (logos, candidate photos)
  • Aggregated election results and statistics
  • Custom branding and label configurations
  • Draft elections and saved configurations

What You Can Export:

  • Election results (CSV format)
  • Voter lists — voter keys, names, emails, voted/unused status and email delivery status (CSV format)
  • Official Election Report (printable format)
  • Ballot records (CSV format) — for elections launched from 7 October 2026, valid ballots only, after voting closes, with no receipt codes or times

Note: No export contains ballots alongside voter names, emails or keys. For elections launched from 7 October 2026, the ballot export also has no voting times or receipt codes. Voter exports contain personal data — store and share them carefully.

What We Retain Rights To:

  • Anonymous usage analytics and platform statistics
  • Aggregated, de-identified data for service improvement
  • The right to display your elections as part of providing the Service
  • Temporary cached data for performance optimization

License Grant

By using the Service, you grant us a limited, non-exclusive license to:

  • Store and display your content as necessary to provide the Service
  • Create backups for data protection and disaster recovery
  • Process your data to provide election functionality
  • Generate thumbnails and optimize uploaded images

Platform Restrictions

You may not:

  • Copy or modify the TapVoter platform code
  • Use the TapVoter name or logo without permission
  • Create derivative works based on the Service
  • Resell or commercialize the Service

9.Data Privacy and Protection

Your privacy is important to us. Our use of your data is governed by our Privacy Policy, which is incorporated into these terms by reference.

Key Privacy Points:

  • Ballots are stored without any voter name, email, key or identifier, and TapVoter does not record when each voter voted
  • We do not sell personal data; we share it only with the service providers listed in our Privacy Policy, to operate the Service
  • On the free plan, election, poll, quiz and survey data is automatically deleted about 90 days after it ends; Pro data is kept while the subscription is active
  • We implement industry-standard security measures
  • You have the right to request deletion of your account and data
  • You can export your data at any time

Automatic Data Deletion Policy:

To protect your privacy and minimize data retention, on the free plan election, poll, quiz and survey data is automatically and permanently deleted about 90 days after it ends (Pro data is kept while the subscription is active; if it ends, the 90 days apply from then). This includes:

  • All vote records and results
  • Voter keys and participation data
  • Uploaded candidate photos and logos
  • Election configuration and settings

Each completed election's Export tab shows its deletion date. Please download any data you wish to keep before this time.

Data Export Rights:

Under these terms, you have the right to export your data at any time through our self-service export feature. Exports are available in CSV format and include:

  • Election results and voter lists
  • Ballot records (for elections launched from 7 October 2026: after voting closes, valid ballots only)
  • Official Election Reports (printable)

No export contains ballots alongside voter names, emails or keys. For elections launched from 7 October 2026, the ballot export also has no voting times or receipt codes.

10.Limitation of Liability

To the maximum extent permitted by law:

  • TapVoter shall not be liable for any indirect, incidental, special, consequential, or punitive damages
  • We are not responsible for any loss of data, revenue, or profits
  • Our total liability shall not exceed $100 USD
  • We do not guarantee the Service will meet all your requirements
  • We are not responsible for third-party actions or content

Election Integrity Notice: While we implement robust security measures, election administrators are ultimately responsible for verifying election integrity and compliance with applicable laws and regulations.

11.Indemnification

You agree to indemnify, defend, and hold harmless TapVoter, its officers, directors, employees, and agents from any claims, damages, losses, liabilities, and expenses (including legal fees) arising from:

  • Your use of the Service
  • Your violation of these Terms
  • Your violation of any rights of another party
  • Any content you submit or elections you conduct
  • Your violation of any applicable laws or regulations

12.Termination

We may terminate or suspend your account immediately, without prior notice or liability, for any reason, including:

  • Breach of these Terms and Conditions
  • Fraudulent or illegal activity
  • At your request to delete your account
  • Extended period of inactivity
  • Technical or security concerns

Upon termination, your right to use the Service will cease immediately. We may retain certain data as required by law or for legitimate business purposes.

13.Governing Law and Disputes

These Terms shall be governed by and construed in accordance with the laws of the jurisdiction in which TapVoter operates, without regard to conflict of law provisions.

Any disputes arising from these terms or your use of the Service shall be resolved through binding arbitration, except where prohibited by law.

You waive any right to a jury trial or to participate in a class action lawsuit.

14.Changes to Terms

We reserve the right to modify these terms at any time. We will notify users of significant changes through:

  • Email notifications to registered administrators
  • Prominent notices on the TapVoter platform
  • Updates to the "Last Updated" date

Continued use of the Service after changes constitutes acceptance of the revised terms.

15.Contact Information

For questions about these Terms and Conditions, please contact us:

By Using TapVoter You Acknowledge:

  • You have read and understood these Terms and Conditions
  • You accept our Privacy Policy and data handling practices
  • You will use the service responsibly and lawfully

Last updated: October 7, 2026 | Version 3.1

Questions About Our Terms?

If you have any questions about these Terms and Conditions or need clarification on any points, please contact us.

Contact Support