About Referendum Lab
A small independent editorial team writing about how groups vote and decide. Here is how the site is made, how it earns money, and what to do when we are wrong.
What we publish
Practical guides to online voting for clubs, associations, owners' associations and companies; comparisons of survey, live polling and voting software; plain explanations of voting methods such as majorities, quorum and ranked-choice voting; and a neutral section on referendums and direct democracy in Europe. Everything appears in English and German.
Independent and neutral
We are not a campaign, a political party or an institution of the European Union, and we do not collect signatures or support any initiative. Our pages on referendums explain rules, procedures and history with references to official sources. They contain no voting recommendation and no arguments for or against a particular outcome.
This domain was used for other purposes in the past, including a signature campaign around 2007 to 2009. Referendum Lab is a new, separate project and has no connection, legal or editorial, to any earlier operator of the domain or to the organisations behind that campaign. None of the old content was taken over.
How we work
- Sources first. Statutes and official texts, electoral authorities, EUR-Lex, the European Commission's own pages and the providers' own documentation. Where we describe common practice rather than rules, we say so.
- Dated facts. Prices, free tiers and features of software change. Time-sensitive statements carry the month they were checked.
- Comparisons are editorial assessments. We compare tools on documented criteria: ballot secrecy, supported voting methods, where data is hosted, accessibility, export and price. We do not publish invented test scores or star ratings.
- No legal advice. Pages about votes in associations or owners' associations describe the general legal framework. They do not replace a look at your statutes or advice from a lawyer.
- Corrections. Substantiated errors get fixed. Significant changes are noted on the page.
How the site is funded
Referendum Lab is a commercial publication. It is funded by advertising and, in future, by partner links to some of the software providers we describe. If you buy something after following a partner link, we may receive a commission; the price is the same for you either way. Partner links are marked.
No provider pays for a mention, a position or a verdict, and no provider sees an article before it is published. Where a free or open-source tool is the better choice, we say so, even though it earns us nothing.
Who writes this
The site is written and edited by a small team rather than by named individual authors, and we do not attach personal bylines or invented credentials to the pages. Editorial responsibility sits with the operator named in the imprint.
Tell us we are wrong
If something here is inaccurate or out of date, we want to know. The fastest route is[email protected] or the contact form. Please include the page address.