Belenios vs CharterVote

Belenios is a free, verifiable online voting system for elections and referendums, including scientific councils and sports associations. Its hosted web platform supports standard candidate selection and preferential elections using Condorcet, Single Transferable Vote, and Majority Judgment. Weighted votes are available for standard elections. Votes are encrypted to protect individual choices, subject to the election’s decryption-key setup. Voters can check that ballots appear in a public ballot box, and anyone can verify that the result matches those ballots. Authentication options include public accounts, Google login, and CAS. The hosted service supports up to 2,500 voters per election; larger elections are directed toward institutional hosting. Belenios is also self-hostable free software under the GNU Affero General Public License version 3. Voters and email addresses cannot be changed after an election starts, and trustee key loss prevents tallying. The hosted plan is free.

CharterVote is a web platform for associations and member bodies to run board elections, motions, referenda, and quick polls. Members verify eligibility once and receive accreditation for a single ballot, which they can cast anonymously using an access code without making a CharterVote account. Members can check whether ballot receipts were included, compare published results with retained evidence, and verify winner certificates through public checks. CharterVote says it uses HTTPS with strict security headers and rate limits sensitive actions. It says it collects only data needed for an election and lets account holders export or erase their data. Enterprise elections can split the ballot-box key among trustees so no single person, including CharterVote, can open results alone. The service is intended for groups such as unions, cooperatives, professional associations, faith groups, alumni networks, and student bodies. The free Starter plan covers up to 25 eligible voters per election, with results and hosted verification kept for 365 days. Paid elections start at $119, paid once for up to 250 voters. Verification does not establish voter identity or intent, device security, or events outside the platform.