There are some ways to keep voter and votes masked off within google forms. It really depends on what scale you're dealing with in terms of the number of voters, and stuffing going on.
Easiest with google forms: If everyone could sign into a google account, I'd change the settings (gear, upper right) on the form so that everyone has to sign in. Just don't check the collect email addresses option, and it won't allow users with the same email address to respond more than once.
The responses tab on the backend of a form lets you see results 3 ways (plus a spreadsheet), which are Summary, Question, and Individual. With Summary, you'll be able to see if someone's name appears more than once, but without an indication of what their answers to the other questions are. Unless of course you check it when there is only a couple votes.
If you do notice that someone is stuffing the virtual ballot box, there are a couple ways to remove their entries. If you're dealing with a small amount of votes, you can stay in the Responses tab and use the Question results. That will give you answers by question. You can remove responses one at a time, by clicking on the dropdown for each person that voted more than once, and then that will pop you over to that individual response, which you can delete one at a time. Make your window smaller if you don't want to see answers to other questions.
Another method: First start by setting up the google sheet for responses (green button under the responses tab). Then on the sheet, hide columns other than name and timestamp. If you'd like to tabulate your own results, use Data > Remove Duplicates. Check "Data has header row," and then only select the column with voter names. This will automatically delete rows with the same name. Then, change the background of the voter names column to black using the paint bucket, and unhide the other columns. Then tabulate results.
If you'd like to have google forms tabulate the results for you, still create the google sheet and hide columns. Once the results are in, number each entry. Then remove the duplicates by using Data > Remove Duplicates. Check "Data has header row," and then only select the column with voter names. Using the Individual section of the Responses tab, remove entries that correspond to the missing entry numbers. Then the Summary section of the Responses tab will tabulate results for you.
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Sydney Thiessen
Fine & Performing Arts Coordinator and Technical Director
Reynolds High School
Troutdale OR
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Original Message:
Sent: 05-18-2020 16:54
From: Ryan Moore
Subject: Help me find the perfect (free) software for my problem
Hoping this message is read by someone more computer-savvy than I--
My question is not, strictly speaking, directly related to theatre ed, but it is for theatre use (community theatre), and the people in this group know lots of stuff that I don't know and are very generous about sharing.
Looking for a way to do voting for theatre officers online (where else these days, right?) for that is secure AND anonymous.
If I only cared about security but not anonymity, the answer is totally clear to me--just send out a google form, make name a required question, check the answers against the list of eligible voters. Same way I take attendance in these days of cloud learning. But I also get that what's easiest is not necessarily what's right and that people value their right to anonymity in elections.
I know there must be ways to keep this anonymous but also ensure people don't vote multiple times, but I think we're getting outside of google forms at that point, and farther from what I know how to do. What I seek is a way to make sure that people couldn't click on the link more than once or vote from multiple devices, etc. I know the organization has also used surveymonkey for other online voting scenarios (e.g. the company's annual awards ceremony), but it always seemed like the specter of people stuffing the virtual ballot box hung over those proceedings.
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Ryan Moore
Theatre Teacher and Forensics Coach
Royal Oak MI
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