Poll - Vote Only Once

OK...figure borg is too busy to worry about this, so I tried to make a couple of modifications.  Tested with latest version 7.01 using Access 2000, but should work on 2002 and SQL as well.  Requires some knowledge of Access databases.

Objective: When the vote-once option is checked, this will be "strictly" enforced, not through the use of cookies (which the forums currently used), but through the use of server-stored voters' IDs.  As borg indicates in another post, this may slow down your forum if there are many (in the thousands) voters.  However, this will ensure that each registered user only votes once.  Of course, some one could sign up as multiple users, but the email restrictions could prevent that.  It's highly recommended that you backup your forum and database before attempting this.

1.  Open the forum database in Access, then open the tblPoll table

2.  Add a memo field called "Vote_IDs".  Set Required to No and Allow Zero Length to Yes.

3. Replace the "poll_cast_vote.asp" in the forum directory and "poll_display_inc.asp" in the includes directory with the files below:

http://www.allersoft.com/wwf/poll_mod_701.zip

Then, you're all set.

Note that if your poll is open to "unregistered user", i.e., guests, cookies will be used to enforce single-vote, since all guests have the same ID, 2.

Should also add that for existing polls, the restriction will be applied to new voters only, i.e., if you make these changes, those who already voted CAN vote again, however, new voters will be able to vote only once.

and the mod about the expiration date on the polls doesn't solve the problem, it only takes care of the database size increasement, but doesn't actually solve the problem... which is MULTI-VOTING..

fernan82 wrote: Supremo wrote: and the mod about the expiration date on the polls doesn't solve the problem, it only takes care of the database size increasement, but doesn't actually solve the problem... which is MULTI-VOTING.. well the only way to prevent multi-voting is by storing the users that have voted on a database and check that the user hasn't voted before allowing him/her to vote so the mod does resolve the multi-voting problem.........................

Sorry if i misunderstood... let me see if i got it straight.

The user who makes the poll, sets an expiration date on it, then, every voter can vote there once, and won't be able to do it again until the expiration date timeouts, and when that happens, the users won't be able to vote anyway, cause the poll gets deleted... is that it ?

Sorry for the trouble.