Much of the software behind DemoChoice is released under the GNU General Public License. The "Disclaimer of Warranty" and "Limitation of Liability" sections (15-17 of version 3) apply to all software on the DemoChoice website, to the administration of the site, and to claims of features and business practices. Interception of data by unauthorized parties and misuse of data are among the damages referred to in the liability section.
Our ultimate goal is not to "monetize" you, but to help you learn about ranked-choice voting, and preferably convince you that it should be used
more widely, including in government elections, ranging from local to national. That will not happen if we do not earn your trust.
Information gathered
We record your vote (of course). Your email address may have been given to us by the creator of your poll. The software is designed to request that or
send you a registration key to authenticate your vote. The only other planned uses of your email address are to contact you to clarify any problems with
the recording of your vote, to respond to an inquiry made by you.
On our poll setup form, other people can enter information about you that is then visible on the web, by making you a candidate or subject of a poll. Of
course, others can post information about you just about anywhere on the web, and not just here. If something objectionable is posted
about you, please let
us know.
Promotion
We do not sell voter data, such as telling a website selling books how you voted in a poll on favorite books. We attempt to generate revenue to cover our
hosting fees using Google ads (details). We mostly rely on others to spread the word about specific polls. If information about
you appears in a poll, it may be included in these promotional activities.
Research
Though ranked-choice voting methods have been used widely for more than 100 years, we and others continue to study improvements to those methods to take
advantage of modern developments in user interface design, information security, etc. Ballot data that do not identify voters may be released for this
purpose.
Administrative
To assist poll creators in boosting voter turnout, or in use of nonstandard counting methods, we may release ballot data and/or a list of who voted.
Ballots will be shuffled to prevent the two datasets from being correlated (assuming that more than one person has voted).
Adverse events
DemoChoice is a low-budget operation running on rented server space. It is maintained by an amateur programmer in his spare time, with occasional help
from
friends and users. Such an operation may be more prone to security breaches, server downtime, bugs, and data loss than other services you may use on the
web.
User responsibility
Users do not have permission to "stuff the ballot box" with large numbers of votes. Poll creators do not have permission from us to cause
content
copyrighted by others to appear on the DemoChoice site (though it may be linked to, or posted with their permission); post or link to content
generally considered objectionable (obscene,
hateful, spam, malware, etc.); or to register voters who do not have an existing relationship with the poll creator, or a reasonably clear interest in
voting in a given poll. However, we do encourage users to promote their polls appropriately.
Removal of content
Polls may be removed from the site at our discretion. This is likely to occur if the poll has been inactive for a significant period of time, or if the
poll contains objectionable material, but removal is not guaranteed. We and our hosting company routinely make backups of the site. We do not make
attempts to permanently destroy all records of any information gathered on the site.
