Running an election for a specific group of students
The end-to-end workflow: tag your students, restrict the election to those tags, and check it before voting opens.
You want an election only part of your student body can vote in — postgraduates, one campus, one faculty. This article walks the full workflow from a student list to a running election.
It's three stages:
Tag your students so the group can be identified.
Restrict the election to those tags.
Check it before voting opens.
Each stage has its own detailed article; this one shows how they fit together and what to watch for between them.
Worked example
Throughout, the goal is: run an election only postgraduate students can vote in.
Stage 1 — Tag your students
Upload a CSV where the Tags (comma separated) column reads Postgraduate for the relevant students:
Name,Email,Student ID,Tags (comma separated)
Amara Osei,amara.osei@example.edu,S1042221,Postgraduate
Chen Liu,chen.liu@example.edu,S1042223,"Postgraduate, Sydney Campus"
Ben Whitlock,ben.whitlock@example.edu,S1042222,Undergraduate
Go to Students → Upload student list, upload the file, match your columns and submit. The Postgraduate tag is created automatically the first time it appears — you don't need to set it up first.
Full detail: Importing students with tags
Two things to know before you move on:
The import is asynchronous and takes up to 5 minutes. Don't re-upload while you wait.
Tagging through a CSV is additive — it adds tags, never removes them.
Stage 2 — Wait, then verify the tags landed
This is the step people skip, and it's the one that causes the "nobody can vote" support ticket.
Wait for the import to finish, then open two or three students from Students → Student list and expand Student Tags. Confirm the tag is there and spelled the way you expect.
If a student is missing entirely, their row failed validation and was skipped silently — Name and Email are required, and the email must be well-formed.
Stage 3 — Create the election with the tag
Go to Elections → Create election. On Step 1: Election Information, select Postgraduate under Required Voter Tags (Optional), then finish the wizard.
Full detail: Restricting an election to specific tags
Remember:
A student needs at least one of the selected tags — it's "any of", not "all of".
An empty field means no restriction at all.
Available on organisation-level elections only.
Stage 4 — Add your voters
Add voters to the election as you normally would for your election type.
Required voter tags filter who may use a ballot — they don't put anyone on the election. The two things are separate: being on the election makes a ballot available to a student; the tag decides whether they're allowed to use it.
Stage 5 — Check before voting opens
Before the election starts, confirm:
[ ] The import has finished and the tag appears on a sample of student records.
[ ] The tag selected on the election is the same tag that's on those records.
[ ] Your voters have been added to the election.
[ ] A student who shouldn't vote doesn't hold the tag.
Anyone without the Postgraduate tag who reaches the ballot is turned away with: "You do not have the required tags to vote in this election."
Changing your mind mid-election
Tags are checked live, every time a ballot is opened or submitted. That means:
Adding the tag to a student during voting lets them vote immediately.
Removing it stops them immediately, even if they've already opened the ballot.
Changing the tags on the election takes effect straight away.
Nothing needs rebuilding or re-sending after a change.
Note that changing eligibility partway through a live election can be contested. If you have a returning officer, agree the change with them and record it.