Glossary

Active account: An authorised user or voter identity not disabled by the system.

Anonymous ballot receipt: A value returned after submission that can confirm ballot inclusion without revealing selections.

Appeals Panel: Optional independent election reviewers appointed for a cycle. Where none is current, certain officer complaints may fall back to the association appointing authority.

Association: The organisation that owns election cycles, such as a union, school or professional body.

Association Administrator/Owner: Governance user for one association. This authority is separate from election operations and voter eligibility.

Archive: Historical treatment that removes a completed or inactive cycle from routine operational attention while preserving the full record. Archive may be a reporting concept rather than a model status in the current release.

Audit event: A keyed, hash-chained record of a significant action.

Ballot envelope: Anonymous accepted-ballot record containing election and receipt information but no voter foreign key.

Ballot selection: Anonymous candidate/option choice linked to a ballot envelope, not to a voter.

Candidate: A person recorded for a candidate position. Only Approved candidates appear on the final list and ballot.

Candidate-list publication: Controlled confirmation that the approved candidate register is ready for public display and readiness checks.

Cancelled election: A retained cycle that will not proceed or continue under a formal authorised decision. Cancellation is not deletion.

Certified register: Election-specific voter register approved with a reference and digest.

Commission upload only: Nomination mode where only authorised Commission direct entry/import introduces candidates.

Commissioner/Chairperson: Core election officer authorised for poll-control actions.

Core Committee: Three distinct mandatory software roles: Commissioner/Chairperson, Secretary and ICT/Data Protection Commissioner.

Controlled draft deletion: Permanent removal of a verified unused Draft after server-side checks confirm that no electoral, voter, governance or audit-dependent activity exists.

Data controller: Institution or body deciding the purpose and means of personal-data processing.

Election eligibility: One voter identity’s status for one election.

Election objection: Public challenge concerning a candidate or electoral process.

Election reference: Unique internal identifier for a cycle within an association.

Election type: Welfare, Mutual Fund, Main Executive, By-election, Runoff, Confirmatory or Other.

Final candidate list: Published set of approved candidates eligible for the ballot.

Frozen register: Snapshot recorded when voting opens and checked again at tally.

Institutional email verification: Election access using a qualifying email workflow where enabled.

Invalidated election: A retained cycle whose process or outcome has been formally determined not to stand. Invalidation requires reasons and evidence and is not deletion.

Mixed nomination: Mode allowing both self-nomination and Commission direct entry/import.

No nomination stage: Mode where candidates/questions are predetermined outside CivitasVote.

Nomination: Formal self-submission for a position, retained with review status and evidence.

Officer complaint: Public complaint about the conduct of an appointed election officer.

One-time credential: Expiring single-use election access code.

Passkey/WebAuthn: Public-key browser/device authentication available only where configured correctly over HTTPS.

Platform Administrator: Appointed ordinary user who manages associations and authorised users, separate from technical superuser and election officers.

Protected media: Non-public uploaded files served only after application authorisation.

Read-only grace: Limited inspection period after an election appointment ends; no new operational actions.

Recount: New versioned tally snapshot generated with a stated reason.

Result approval: Independent approve/reject decision by an authorised current officer.

Result declaration: System-generated formal PDF or separately uploaded signed PDF for a published tally.

Self-nomination: Mode where eligible voters submit themselves and approved nominations create linked candidates.

Superseded election: An original retained cycle that has been replaced by a separately referenced election. Superseded may be a governance description rather than a current model status.

Technical superuser: Restricted recovery/technical account with Django superuser capability.

Tally snapshot: Immutable version of computed aggregate results, counts, digest and signature.

Unused Draft: A Draft election cycle with no operational, voter, ballot, tally, approval, dispute, declaration or other audit-dependent activity. The application may apply stricter eligibility checks before deletion.

Voter directory: Reusable association-level member identities.

Voter PIN: Personal secret used for election access where enabled.

Voting ticket: Short-lived server-side authorisation created after successful verification.