A voting period can be started and closed at any time for any duration. At most one voting period may be open at any point. A voting period can be started by supplying a title and designating a type to the voting period, which may either be by Rank or by Points.

Once a voting period is closed, the vote data is moved into a history table in the database, while not removing the general voting blotter definitions from the User.

Voting, whether by rank or by points entails the Voter setting up a voting blotter. This voting blotter consists of a number of industries chosen by the Voter. For each of these industries, the Voter selects several Recipients that have an association to this industry, or several Companies, which s/he would like to vote for.

Voting by Rank entails the Voter ranking a Recipient or Company within an industry with integers 1 through N, where N is the number of Recipients or Companies. Ranks are contained within each industry, so that the Voter essentially ranks the Recipients/Companies within an industry. The Voter must begin ranking with integer 1, s/he may not skip ranks, enter duplicate ranks, or leave out ranks.

While Voting by Rank does not entail any preparation by the Administrator, Voting by Points requires the Administrator to custom-design a voting blotter. After starting a "by Point Voting Period", an additional option appears in the Admin tab, as shown on the right.

The drop down box lists all of the voting criteria in the current blotter. From this point,

• new criteria can be added;
• existing criteria can be modified or deleted by selecting the row from the drop-down box then selecting Modify or Delete;
• voting blotter globals can be set (this applies only to bullet rows);
• rows can be re-ordered in any fashion;