Terms of Use for Pref.Tools Vote

Last updated: 2026-10-25

1. The Service

Pref.Tools Vote ("the Service"), available at https://pref.tools/vote, is a free tool for creating polls and computing their results with methods from social choice theory. It is run by Dominik Peters as a private individual, without commercial purpose. The source code is published under the MIT License at https://github.com/DominikPeters/pref-tools-vote-app.

These terms apply when you create an account or create a poll. Responding to a poll does not require an account, but sections 3, 4 and 8 also describe what respondents can expect from the Service.

2. A Free Service Without Guarantees

The Service is provided free of charge and "as is". It may contain errors, be unavailable from time to time, and change or be discontinued. I will try to announce a shutdown in advance, but you should export any results you need to keep (the poll admin panel offers exports).

3. Results and Voting Rules

Results are computed automatically by software that implements voting rules, partly through open-source libraries such as pref_voting and abcvoting. This software may contain bugs. Voting rules also differ in how they treat ties and incomplete ballots, and an implementation may follow a different convention than the one you have in mind.

As a poll creator, you are responsible for choosing a voting rule suitable for your purpose and for checking the result before relying on it. For decisions that matter, export the responses and verify the result independently.

The Service is not designed or certified for elections that are subject to legal requirements, such as political elections, elections of employee representatives, or votes for which the law or an organization's statutes impose rules on electronic voting (in France, for example, the CNIL recommendations on online voting). Do not use it for such elections.

4. Anonymity and Security

Privacy settings and the secret ballot mode limit what poll creators and other people can see, and the secret ballot mode limits what data is stored. They do not give the guarantees of a verifiable electronic voting system. In particular, depending on the access mode, the Service cannot always prevent one person from voting several times, and it does not protect against coercion or vote buying.

5. Your Responsibilities as a Poll Creator

  • You are responsible for the content of your polls.
  • Only invite people by email if you have a legitimate reason to contact them.
  • Choose privacy and access settings that are appropriate for your respondents, and tell them how their responses will be used if this is not obvious.
  • Keep your poll admin link secret. Anyone who has it can manage the poll and see its responses.

6. Acceptable Use

You must not use the Service to:

  • publish illegal content, or content that harasses, threatens or incites hatred against people;
  • expose other people's personal information without their consent;
  • send spam, or send invitations to people who have no connection to the poll;
  • impersonate others, or collect passwords, payment details or similar sensitive data;
  • interfere with the Service or other people's polls, for example by attacking its security or submitting automated responses.

Poll content is checked automatically for harmful content, and anyone can report a poll using the report link on the poll page or by email. I may hide or delete polls and accounts that violate these terms, where possible after informing you.

7. Personal Data

The Privacy Policy explains what data the Service collects and how it is protected.

When you collect respondents' names or email addresses in a poll, or invite people by email, you decide why this data is collected. Where data protection law applies to your poll, you are the controller of this data and the Service processes it on your behalf. In that case:

  • the Service uses this data only to run your poll as you configure it, and for the security measures described in the Privacy Policy;
  • access to it is limited to what is needed to operate the Service;
  • the service providers listed in the Privacy Policy are used, and I will update the Privacy Policy before adding new ones;
  • I will help you, as far as reasonably possible, to answer requests from your respondents;
  • I will inform you without undue delay if a data breach affects your poll;
  • the data is deleted when you delete the poll or the responses.

8. Liability

The Service is free, so to the extent permitted by law I am not liable for decisions taken on the basis of poll results, for loss of data, or for interruptions of the Service. Nothing in these terms limits liability that cannot be limited by law, in particular liability for intentional misconduct or gross negligence (faute lourde ou dolosive), or the rights you have under data protection law.

9. Your Account

You can delete your account at any time from your dashboard. You can choose to delete your polls with it, or keep them without a link to your account.

10. Changes to These Terms

I may change these terms. I will notify registered users of significant changes by email, and the date at the top shows when they were last revised.

11. Applicable Law

These terms are governed by French law. This does not take away the protection of mandatory consumer law of the country where you live.

12. Contact

Dominik Peters
Email: mail@dominik-peters.de