Help & answers
Frequently asked questions
Answers to the questions boards, administrators, lawyers, and IT teams ask before running their first assembly on Assembley.
Sections
For decision makers
Questions boards and executives ask before committing
Does the law allow a general assembly to vote digitally?
That depends on the law that governs your organisation and on its articles of association. Many company and association laws allow members to take part and vote electronically, some only where the articles provide for it, so check both before you decide. Where digital voting is allowed, you need to be able to show who voted, that the votes can be checked, and what was decided. Assembley records each of those things; whether a particular assembly was validly convened and held is for the organisation and its advisers to determine.
The evidence package is digital documentation of participation, voting rights and voting results, and cryptographically verifiable evidence of the recorded meeting data. What weight any particular record carries in a particular proceeding is for a court or a lawyer to determine, not for us to assert.
Check your governing law and your articles first. Where digital voting is allowed, Assembley records who voted, what was decided, and evidence that anyone you share it with can verify.
What happens if a shareholder challenges the result?
If a result is challenged, you export the evidence package: a cryptographically verified document containing every vote cast, every access credential verified, the quorum figures, the timestamp of each action, and the hash chain linking every event. The challenger must demonstrate a specific defect in that record.
Because votes are write-once (enforced at the database level, not by policy), and because every action carries a timestamp and an access token, manufactured disputes about "what really happened" cannot be sustained against the record. We recommend you retain the evidence package for the retention period that applies to your organisation, which differs between countries and types of organisation.
How long does it take to set up an assembly?
You import your shareholder or member register (CSV), configure the agenda items and voting thresholds, and send authenticated ballot links to each participant. Assembley validates your import for duplicates and errors before sending.
For organisations running their first digital assembly, we recommend a dry run with a small group 48 hours before the meeting. This confirms that everyone can access their link and that the voting interface works as expected.
Can we use Assembley for an extraordinary general meeting, not just the annual AGM?
Yes. Assembley works for any formally convened assembly: annual general meetings, extraordinary general meetings, board votes, committee votes, and special resolutions. The platform does not distinguish between assembly types; you define the agenda, the voting thresholds, and the participant list for each event.
Some decisions, such as a change to the articles, usually need more than a simple majority, commonly two thirds or three quarters. The law that governs your organisation and its articles say which decisions and how large a majority. Each agenda item in Assembley carries a majority requirement: simple majority, supermajority or unanimous. For every requirement, Assembley records the requirement and the weighted counts, and the chair declares the outcome.
Can we see results during the assembly as votes come in?
Yes. The live results panel updates continuously as votes are cast, with a live quorum indicator and per-item vote counts. For an item set as a secret ballot, only the number of ballots cast is shown while voting is open; the totals per choice appear once it closes, and individual choices never do.
Legal & compliance
For lawyers, compliance officers, and company secretaries
What legal framework governs assemblies run on Assembley?
The law that governs your organisation does: its company or association law, and its articles of association. Assembley does not change which rules apply. You set each item's majority, the quorum and who may vote to match them, and Assembley records how the meeting ran against those settings. Personal data is processed under the GDPR (EU Regulation 2016/679), as set out in the Data Processing Agreement.
We do not provide legal advice.
What does the evidence package document, and how can it be verified?
The evidence package exported from every Assembley assembly contains a complete event log with timestamps and cryptographic hashes, individual vote records tied to verified identities on standard items (for secret-ballot items, participation and the ballot set without the individual choices), presence against the quorum figure you configured, Merkle root verification per agenda item, and a SHA-256 hash chain covering all events.
This package is a self-contained, tamper-evident record. If any event in the chain is modified after the assembly, the hash chain breaks at a detectable point, making tampering detectable at the first altered event. The chain is a SHA-256 hash chain, not a digital signature: it proves the recorded data has not been altered since it was written, and it does not attest to who signed anything.
What is in the evidence package and how do I get it?
The evidence package is available immediately after an assembly closes. It can be downloaded as a structured JSON file (for technical verification) or as a formatted PDF (for legal and board use). The package contains:
- Full participant list with authentication records and verification timestamps
- For standard items, a complete vote log: who voted, what they voted, when, from which IP address. For secret-ballot items the log records that a voter participated, never their choice; the package instead publishes the aggregate result, the set of ballot identifiers, and the Merkle root
- Quorum calculation against the figure you configured
- Per-item results with vote counts, share-weighted totals, and percentage
- SHA-256 hash chain linking every event in sequence
- Merkle root per agenda item for independent vote-set verification
How does Assembley handle the requirement for signed minutes?
Assembley generates a draft minutes document from the assembly record, covering attendance, quorum, each agenda item, the motion text and the vote result. This draft is ready to print immediately after the assembly closes.
The draft must be reviewed, potentially amended, and formally signed by your chair and secretary as required by your articles of association and applicable law. The evidence package complements but does not replace signed minutes. Think of the evidence package as the cryptographic proof and the signed minutes as the formal legal record. Both are required for full compliance.
Signed minutes are a separate legal requirement. Assembley generates the draft; your chair and secretary must execute the signing process according to your articles of association.
How does Assembley support our GDPR obligations?
The database and the application run in Frankfurt, Germany, and transactional mail is sent from Ireland. Two of the three sub-processor agreements state that primary processing takes place in the United States, and the sub-processor list shows both. We are a data processor under GDPR Article 28. You are the data controller.
The Data Processing Agreement covers every Article 28 provision, and it is accepted with the Terms when your organisation signs up. How long each kind of data is kept, and how deletion works, is set out there rather than repeated here.
What majority thresholds does Assembley support?
Each agenda item carries one of three majority requirements: simple majority, supermajority or unanimous. Assembley decides no item: for each requirement it records the weighted counts for, against and blank, reports blank votes without adding them to either side, and the chair makes the determination. Assembley does not apply a custom percentage, a quorum-based threshold, or an abstention denominator of your choosing.
Confirm your required thresholds with your legal adviser before configuring. They may differ from statutory defaults based on your specific articles of association.
For administrators
For the person setting up and running the assembly on the day
What do voters need to participate?
Voters need only an email address and a device with a web browser. There is no app to download, no account to create, and no password to remember. Each voter receives a unique, single-use ballot link by email. The link opens their ballot, and in an invited meeting they also enter the meeting code the chair shows during the meeting.
Each link works once and expires 24 hours after the scheduled meeting time, or 7 days after sending if no time is set. Every invitation email includes a short “How to vote” section for voters who are less at home with technology.
How do we handle proxy voting?
Proxies are managed in the Proxies tab of each assembly. You record each proxy: the member giving it, the member holding it, and a note. The holder opens their own link once and casts their own ballot and one for each member they represent.
The evidence package lists each proxy relationship. Assembley enforces proxy limits where configured, for example by restricting a single person from holding proxies for more than a defined number of members.
What if a voter loses or doesn't receive their ballot link?
Administrators can resend a ballot link from the Participants tab. The resent link replaces the previous one, so only the most recently issued link works. Members can also ask for a new link themselves from the ballot page, and those requests are rate-limited.
Can we run a hybrid assembly, with some voters in person and some voting digitally?
Yes. Assembley supports hybrid assemblies. Voters attending in person can either vote on their own devices using the same ballot link, or you can designate an administrator to cast their vote on their behalf with a recorded authorisation. Quorum counting works across both groups. The evidence package records the voting method for each participant.
What happens if the internet goes down during the assembly?
Votes already cast are persisted immediately to the database. A connection drop after casting does not lose a vote. If a voter's connection drops during voting, they can reconnect within their 12-hour session, or ask for a fresh link from the ballot page.
We recommend having a contingency plan for extended outages: close voting on the open item from the live view, tell participants, then reopen it once connectivity is restored. Closing and reopening voting are recorded in the meeting's activity.
IT & security
For IT managers and security-conscious administrators
Where is Assembley data stored?
The database and the application run in Frankfurt, Germany, and transactional mail is sent from Ireland. Two of the three sub-processor agreements state that primary processing takes place in the United States, and the sub-processor list shows both.
Our infrastructure provider (AWS) holds ISO 27001, SOC 2 Type II, and EU Cloud Code of Conduct certifications; Assembley itself holds no third-party security certification. Connections are HTTPS only, with strict transport security set.
Can anyone, including Assembley, alter a submitted vote?
No. Votes are append-only, enforced at the PostgreSQL database level by a trigger that blocks every DELETE on the votes table, and every UPDATE except removing the voter's name after an erasure request or at the end of retention. This applies to all database users, including Assembley administrators. It is not a policy control. It is an architectural constraint that cannot be bypassed by application code.
Additionally, every vote is included in a SHA-256 hash chain. Any modification to any vote record would break the chain at a detectable point. The Merkle root for each agenda item is stored separately and can be used to verify the integrity of the vote set independently, without access to Assembley systems.
Votes are append-only, enforced at the database level by a PostgreSQL trigger, not by access controls or policy. No user, including Assembley, can change a submitted choice or delete a vote.
How does voter authentication work?
Each voter receives a unique 64-character cryptographic token delivered by email. This token is single-use and expires 24 hours after the scheduled meeting time, or 7 days after sending if none is set. On first use, the token is exchanged for a session cookie (httpOnly, Secure, SameSite=Strict, 12-hour expiry). The session cookie is invisible to JavaScript and cannot be accessed by client-side code.
All vote submission happens server-side via authenticated API routes. Failed authentication attempts are rate-limited and logged. Voters have no password: their single-use link, with the meeting code where the meeting asks for one, is their credential.
Is there a Data Processing Agreement available?
Yes. The Data Processing Agreement is published and is accepted with the Terms when your organisation signs up. It covers every requirement of GDPR Article 28. The sub-processors it relies on, and where each agreement permits processing, are on the published sub-processor list.
What personal data does Assembley process?
Assembley processes the minimum personal data required to run a secure assembly: full name (for the participant register), email address (for ballot delivery), IP address at time of voting (for the audit record), and device and browser information (for session management).
We do not use this data for marketing to your participants. How long each kind of data is kept (and what a deletion request can and cannot remove from the record of a completed assembly) is set out in the Data Processing Agreement.
For associations
Questions associations, clubs and co-operatives ask
Does Assembley work for associations, not just companies?
Yes. Assembley is built for associations, sports clubs, housing co-operatives and owners' associations, foundations, and cooperatives, in addition to companies. The platform supports the governance structures common in associations: member-based voting (one member, one vote), weighted voting (for share-based structures), secret ballots, and configurable quorum rules.
The evidence package documents participation, voting rights and results for your records. Whether it meets a particular documentation rule is for your organisation and its advisers to judge.
How does secret ballot voting work?
Assembley supports secret ballots at the agenda item level: you configure each item as open (results visible with voter names) or secret (results visible, with no voter identity on any vote). In secret ballot mode, the system records that each voter cast a vote for quorum and audit purposes, but does not store the choice in a way that is attributable to them in the results view. The identifier that ties a ballot to a voter is derived in the voter's own browser from a secret that never leaves their device, so the secret needed to reconstruct who voted how is never sent to us.
Standard (non-secret) items keep the full attributed vote log. The evidence package for secret ballot items confirms participation counts and aggregate results without revealing individual choices. With a secret ballot, the administrator sees the totals, never an individual ballot.
Can a voter check their own secret ballot?
Yes. When the meeting ends, the voter's browser shows them the verification code of each secret ballot they cast, to save. After voting closes, they can find that exact code in the published record and confirm their ballot was counted, without revealing how they voted.
The code is deliberately non-transferable: it cannot prove their choice to anyone else, so it gives a vote-buyer or someone applying pressure nothing to verify. Each voter can confirm their own ballot is in the count, while an outside auditor can verify the tally as a whole, with no identity revealed.
Can we handle weighted voting, where some members have more votes than others?
Yes. Assembley supports weighted voting. Each participant in your member register can be assigned a vote weight. Every tally is weighted by those votes. Quorum is one percentage of voting rights that you set; Assembley does not track a headcount quorum beside it.
What notice period requirements does Assembley help us meet?
Assembley does not enforce notice periods. That is a legal requirement you must comply with independently based on your articles of association. However, Assembley logs the exact timestamp at which ballot invitations are sent, which serves as documented evidence of when notice was given.
We recommend sending invitations from within Assembley rather than from a personal email address, so the invitation timestamp is captured in the audit record rather than in an inbox that could be changed or deleted.
Notice period compliance is your responsibility. Assembley logs the dispatch timestamp as evidence, but you must calculate and observe the required period before that dispatch.
Pricing & plans
Questions about cost, commitment, and what's included
How is Assembley priced?
There are two ways to pay. One meeting covers one real assembly, from notice to minutes. Annual covers every assembly for 12 months; it is shown per month and paid for a year at a time.
Both are priced by the members on your register: each entry counts once, however many votes it carries. Up to 10 members is free. Above 2,000 members, Enterprise is priced for your organisation. Prices exclude VAT.
See every figure on the pricing page.
Is there a free plan?
Yes. Free covers real assemblies of up to 10 members, with no time limit: secret ballots, elections with candidates, advance votes, minutes and the evidence package, with one vote per voter. Advanced voting, an add-on you choose, adds votes by shares or weights, share classes and multiple voting rights, and proxies. Free has one administrator. Templates, Insights and Team & Roles are Workspace, an add-on to Annual. No credit card is required to start.
Free includes secret ballots, elections and the evidence package. No credit card required.
What happens to our data if we cancel?
Export your assembly records and evidence packages before cancellation takes effect. How long they remain exportable afterwards, and when each kind of data is deleted, is set out in the Data Processing Agreement.
You can ask for deletion at any time by emailing hello@assembley.co.
Do we need a long-term contract?
No. One meeting is a single purchase, not a subscription. Annual is paid for a year at a time, with no multi-year commitment: you can cancel at any time, and your access continues until the end of the year you paid for. For enterprise customers with specific contractual requirements, we offer custom agreements. Contact hello@assembley.co to discuss.
Can we run just a single assembly without an annual subscription?
Yes. One meeting covers one real assembly, from notice to minutes, priced by the members on your register. Test assemblies are free, so you can practise first, and the purchase does not expire.
Still unsure?
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