---
title: Setting up a voting round
description: Learn how to create and configure a voting round and what information you can see from a voting round.
---

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March 5, 2026

# Setting up a voting round

## Learn how to create and configure a voting round and what information you can see from a voting round.

#### **Topics**

- Overview
- Voting rounds dashboard
- Create a new round
- Add questions
- Remove questions
- View and edit a round
- Important: Editing live voting Rounds

#### **Overview**

Manage your voting rounds by navigating to the **voting rounds** tab in your Hearken EMS. This will bring up your voting rounds dashboard. From the dashboard you can create, manage, edit and schedule your voting rounds.

#### **Voting rounds dashboard**

#### **Scheduled**

This is where you can see all of your current and scheduled (upcoming) voting rounds, and view the live results for the round that is currently running.

**Important:** The scheduled voting round with the earliest start date is what will be displayed live in your voting embed. The round that is live for your audience will display a purple **now running** badge.

 

#### **Recently Completed (Past month)**

This section shows all of the voting rounds that have been completed within the past month. See the list of all of the voting rounds you have completed by clicking the **show all completed** link on the right side of the section.

![](https://hearken.intercom-attachments-1.com/i/o/177545089/7c3090df5d1fb455dc03b0e3/d33v4339jhl8k0.cloudfront.netdocsassets55ef1519c697917549d37fa1images568469bac69791436155ab13file-ilR09Gq8kl.png?expires=1772731800&signature=1124a30e7e88cb2a7fa192ba3ab1cf45b4293cfe7d9e7c38d0fb14fa17ee3c38&req=dScgE817nYlWFb4f3HP0gNk6RnSehzAJucc%2BT0h2DjSQ05DkBBla1BKIWfou%0AEwjBj6%2FwexFfu8WqHA%3D%3D%0A)

#### **Create a new voting round**

To make a new voting round, click the **+ new voting round** button on any of the pages within the **voting rounds** tab. This will direct you to a new voting round configuration page that will prompt you to pick start and end dates, give a title for your round, and add any notes you’d like to describe the round. Perhaps you’d like to add a bit of background description as an explanation for other Hearken users in your newsroom. For example, “This round is for Linda. She’s going to pursue the winning question ahead of the school board vote.”

**Important:** The dates and notes are for internal organization on your backend site and are not visible to your audience. The voting round with the earliest start date will be shown in your Poll Embed, so if this is your first time making a voting round and want to be able to preview what will look like, **set the Start Date to today**.

![](https://hearken.intercom-attachments-1.com/i/o/177545094/2361b7f928c2c38e80744175/d33v4339jhl8k0.cloudfront.netdocsassets55ef1519c697917549d37fa1images56846a4f9033603f7da2c9f8file-rGSYHyiKAy.png?expires=1772731800&signature=60c1a87419fd1cb54d827b3bffd517891b8f7a9ed10c0d8cf142b56f93e51b7d&req=dScgE817nYhbFb4f3HP0gJFxaMG0lgqs5sq%2BDJWcGmUVvqEbvATqS7ycjtK%2F%0Ah6QLSU8iDOlzrhyspQ%3D%3D%0A)

#### **Dates**

When choosing a start and end date, keep in mind that voting rounds begin and end at midnight in your timezone on the dates of your choosing. For example, let’s say you schedule a voting round to begin on December 1, 2015 and end on December 15, 2015.

![](https://hearken.intercom-attachments-1.com/i/o/177545097/84e277db17db01ef5d86515f/d33v4339jhl8k0.cloudfront.netdocsassets55ef1519c697917549d37fa1images56846a6b9033603f7da2c9fcfile-Hp4AUlWlmi.png?expires=1772731800&signature=8a5842d177be31b1e47f3af16bba7a379f0b157b63d15719def0aec27d93d80e&req=dScgE817nYhYFb4f3HP0gNRBhProP6TSnOkBl3ku2b9dLHYvoVHK6nkooBk3%0AcR0dwy%2Fon%2BjdxCLH%2Bw%3D%3D%0A)

This means your round is live starting at 12:00 am (midnight) on December 1, 2015. The round will move to a **Completed** status at 12:00 am (midnight) on December 16, 2015.

In other words, the very last moment this voting round will be live is at 11:59:59 pm on December 15, 2015.

 

#### **Add a question to a voting round**

To add questions to your voting rounds, click on any question’s **quick edit** button on any page where questions are accessible (E.g., **questions** page, **lists**, **dashboard**).

Look at the **in voting rounds** section of the edit menu and select the voting round you would like to add or remove this question from. Questions can live in multiple voting rounds. Click **update** to save your changes.

The new questions will then be represented in your round when you navigate back to the individual voting round’s page.

 

#### **Remove a question from a voting round**

Navigate to the selected round’s page and click the **delete** button to the left of the question, which will prompt a dialogue box verifying the action. After you hit **OK** the question will be removed from your round.

![](https://hearken.intercom-attachments-1.com/i/o/177545103/100a5fb69163d74fdffd8a97/d33v4339jhl8k0.cloudfront.netdocsassets55ef1519c697917549d37fa1images56846ae09033603f7da2ca04file-pP7qlQlKYa.png?expires=1772731800&signature=89a580f532dae32a4748da65f2ea19392c0df7bcfb5b0946dbb66c1a0dd830c2&req=dScgE817nIFcFb4f3HP0gIUHoWZmQAGWf7lfgbR0Nd0rstpgG6AxTHNXt9zW%0AQNB42bzizD5UuSmeLQ%3D%3D%0A)

#### **View and edit a voting round**

Click on the round’s title or **edit** button to navigate to its individual voting round page.

![](https://hearken.intercom-attachments-1.com/i/o/177545105/cd87454b49a0416a86aa54dc/d33v4339jhl8k0.cloudfront.netdocsassets55ef1519c697917549d37fa1images56846afa9033603f7da2ca05file-7FmFOrf5CC.png?expires=1772731800&signature=6e710b48c73dd717f56e0d24817ddf1c593f68f162aa1addd8440bc797d7f246&req=dScgE817nIFaFb4f3HP0gK9hx%2BS6BuwYU2Rhd84odaUEn3%2FsNMBK5Cf%2BdG5u%0AeqfYwSXxVKoL5yvr8Q%3D%3D%0A)

An individual voting round’s page allows you to:

- Monitor your round’s live results and vote counts
- [Export any email addresses](https://help.wearehearken.com/en/articles/3640009-exporting-voter-emails?hsLang=en)that your voters may have given you when they voted. Note: be sure to email them when the question is published! You can export a list (CSV) of emails from this page and also from any individual question’s detailed edit page.
- Copy (to your clipboard) the email addresses of the audience members who submitted the questions/responses.
- View details or edit question details (including editing the display text to fix any typos) by clicking on the text of the question.
- Remove a question by clicking the delete icon to the left
- Change the round’s dates to end it early, or extend it later by clicking the edit details button
- Edit the round’s title or notes by clicking the edit details button

![](https://downloads.intercomcdn.com/i/o/218362074/d1a46d97e5a698eaa8981c7b/Screen+Shot+2020-06-15+at+4.19.41+PM.png?expires=1772731800&signature=e8147d18622511450a90a3505de5f5eb0e78661b95170db5c3a9adb2cc22a341&req=diEvFc98nYZbFb4f3HP0gGKR1ok882Rabzb8On2PTJARwY%2BHO9ohm03oVXzi%0ARjYHy3rwRb%2B%2FtGOeXA%3D%3D%0A)

 

#### **Important: Editing live voting rounds**

You may create a voting round, it goes live and then suddenly you realize it needs editing. Maybe there’s a typo in the question, or you decide the question needs to be removed from the round, or you need to add another. You are allowed to do all of these things. Just know there may be consequences for your voting audience and the fairness of the round.

 

**Altering a live voting round that your audience is voting on will skew the results.**

If no votes have yet to come in, that’s a great moment to do some editing or swapping. If votes have come in and you need to change something, realize that your audience may have made a different choice if the round were different. There is no way for you to manually change the votes on your own backend, but if you run into trouble with this, reach out to us and we can help add or remove votes.

If you find a grammatical error, typo or need to clarify a question that’s in a voting round (currently running or scheduled) you can change it while the round is live.

![](https://hearken.intercom-attachments-1.com/i/o/177545108/37acaa828cba5aa989961ffa/d33v4339jhl8k0.cloudfront.netdocsassets55ef1519c697917549d37fa1images56846b64c69791436155ab25file-9hIaWjOLna.png?expires=1772731800&signature=4b14100e5bba2f2b58b60ea91bf8ef15e57cc352282933ee83662f9135949cb3&req=dScgE817nIFXFb4f3HP0gHQnNxMez1yyxwReYfTn3s5Y%2BwYjzF1Jo%2Fl0hzGj%0A49u8bQDwfhPWAVH28Q%3D%3D%0A)

In this example above, the second question has a typo (“origine” instead of “origin”). To correct this, click on the question. This leads to the **question detail** page where you can make edits.

The **edit details** button enables editing to fix the typo and pops a box up to make the change.

![](https://hearken.intercom-attachments-1.com/i/o/177545111/7e8979bc50f178d23309ca5b/d33v4339jhl8k0.cloudfront.netdocsassets55ef1519c697917549d37fa1images56846b97c69791436155ab2afile-kZfekeyMQ5.png?expires=1772731800&signature=b1da66aeb444652b36e5290b620ac9e7c44dcaf742c70a6fa2b2800b6d6c6124&req=dScgE817nIBeFb4f3HP0gAhhMrC5DnchIgJZw%2FJqmVr8FeT0jABSKngqOOHq%0Az%2BG7JjsCyPzZZs1M0w%3D%3D%0A)

Hit **Save** to save changes to the question. The edited question will now be updated across the system, and show up in the voting round. The changes will ripple through to the live voting round if the voting round is live.

 

#### **Deleted voting rounds**

You might delete a voting round for a few reasons. Maybe you got a voting round started under a certain theme or idea, and decide it’s not worth pursuing. Or perhaps you have a better idea and it’s easier to scrap the one you’re working on to make a new voting round.

Whatever the reason, you can delete a round by clicking on the trash can **delete** icon to the left of its title. This will prompt a dialogue box confirming your action.

You can find all of the voting rounds you have deleted by clicking on the **deleted voting rounds** in the upper right corner of the page. Deleting does not have to be a permanent decision. If you delete by mistake, or want to revisit a scrapped voting round, you can recover the round by clicking the **restore** button.

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