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 DSA's preferred alternative going forward: stronger, more flexible, fully customizable, and more affordable — open source, built by DSA and for DSA. We're not forcing 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.	Runs on cloud 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) — DSA owns the roadmap and can extend anything.
Data ownership	Ballots are hosted by the vendor and removed about 12 weeks after the election.	Ballots stay on DSA infrastructure, retained on DSA's 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.	DSA-maintained and extensible, with the whole movement able to contribute.

What DSA gains

Lower cost. Elections run for a fraction of per-chapter vendor fees, on cloud 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. DSA controls the code, the data, and the roadmap — and the whole movement can improve it.

When OpaVote still makes sense

OpaVote is a good partner, and no chapter is being pushed 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.

Not affiliated with or endorsed 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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