Why RosaVote

OpaVote is a good partner to DSA — an affordable, dependable service that has run our elections for years, and it stays a solid choice, especially for high-stakes or contested races where an independent third-party platform adds trust.

RosaVote is an independent, open-source alternative: stronger, more flexible, fully customizable, and more affordable — open source, built by DSA members, for DSA-style elections. Nothing forces a migration — chapters choose what fits each race; RosaVote is simply the better default for most of them.

	OpaVote	RosaVote
Cost at DSA scale	About $0.08 per voter, per election — reasonable for years, but it multiplies across 200+ chapters each running their own vote.	Can run on cloud infrastructure DSA already operates — a fraction of the cost, at any scale.
Customization	One general-purpose ballot template.	Fully customizable: multi-section ballots, chapter-unique questions, randomized slates, and per-section visibility on a single page.
DSA-specific rules	Diversity quotas and bylaw timing are handled by hand, around the tool.	Diversity-quota reservations, Article V timing, delegate alternates, and national + chapter-scoped admin built in.
Flexibility & control	Proprietary and hosted — you work within its limits.	Open source (AGPL-3.0) — anyone can host, audit, or extend it; no vendor lock-in.
Data ownership	Ballots are hosted by the vendor and removed about 12 weeks after the election.	Ballots stay on infrastructure the organization controls, retained on its own terms.
Voter verification	Published results and a downloadable ballot file.	Per-voter receipts, a public hash chain, and an in-browser verifier — so members check their own vote and anyone can recount.
Counting methods	Scottish STV, Borda, IRV, Condorcet — a solid, proven set.	All of those plus Meek STV and Score/STAR/STAR-PR — open and reproducible, reading the same standard ballot files.
Support & independence	Commercial support and a neutral, third-party platform — a real plus for high-stakes or contested races.	Maintained by DSA members and open to contributions from the whole movement.

What chapters gain

Lower cost. Elections run for a fraction of per-chapter vendor fees, on cloud infrastructure DSA already pays for.
Ballots that fit our bylaws. Quotas, Article V timing, alternates and custom multi-section ballots — not workarounds bolted on the side.
Real verifiability. Members confirm their own vote and anyone can independently recount from a public hash chain.
Ownership. The organization running the election controls its data and infrastructure, and the code is open for anyone to audit, host, or extend.

When OpaVote still makes sense

OpaVote is a good partner, and nothing pushes a chapter off it. For an especially high-stakes or contested election, some will prefer the independence of a neutral, third-party vendor with commercial support — and OpaVote remains an excellent choice for exactly that. RosaVote is the preferred default everywhere else, and it's here whenever a chapter is ready.

RosaVote is an independent open-source project — not affiliated with or endorsed by the Democratic Socialists of America (DSA) or by OpaVote; OpaVote is a trademark of its owners. Descriptions here reflect OpaVote's public pricing/documentation and its June 2026 DSA case study, and corrections are welcome via the source repository.

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