Description

KindlyVote turns any WordPress site into a complete voting and elections platform. Run beauty
pageants, award shows, talent contests, and school, church, or association elections — as free
polls, or as paid contests where every vote is only counted after the payment gateway confirms it.

Built for African organizers, KindlyVote supports Paystack and Flutterwave out of the box,
works in local currencies (NGN, GHS, ZAR, KES, RWF, XOF), and records paid votes only after a
signature-verified webhook — so a vote is never counted before the money is confirmed.

Use cases

Beauty pageants and modeling contests
Award shows and “of the year” competitions
Talent shows and fan voting
School and student-union elections
Church, NGO, and association elections
Any contest that sells votes, or any free poll

Create your event

Unlimited voting events, each with its own start and end window (timezone-aware)
Paid or free mode per event, with a simple price-per-vote for paid contests
Organize contestants into categories or positions, each with its own ready-to-copy shortcode

Contestant profiles

Featured photo, bio, brand or business name, and a contest number
A drag-to-reorder photo gallery, with thumbnails that swap the main image
Social links (Instagram, Facebook, X, TikTok, website) and a video URL

Free voting

One vote per email — per contestant, per category, per event, or unlimited
Optional CAPTCHA — Cloudflare Turnstile or Google reCAPTCHA
Per-IP rate limiting to curb spam
Restrict voting to specific email domains (e.g. only @company.com) for internal elections

Paid voting

Paystack and Flutterwave, with webhook plus server-side verification
The amount is always set on the server — the browser can never change the price
Idempotent recording — a webhook and a browser callback can both fire without double-counting

Display and results

[kvote_contest] — a responsive grid of contestants with vote buttons
[kvote_leaderboard] — a ranked standings board with vote bars
A mobile-friendly vote popup, and a Primary colour setting to match your site

Administration and audit

A paginated Voting Logs screen — filter by status, voter email, and date range for a full audit trail
Add or set a contestant’s vote count manually, recorded as an auditable adjustment
A dashboard with live totals, revenue, and top contestants

KindlyVote is built on modern, secure, object-oriented foundations and is designed to scale to
large events. For live real-time results, advanced analytics, and fully hosted elections, see
KindlyVote Cloud at https://kindlyvote.com.

External services

This plugin relies on third-party payment and bot-protection services. None of them are contacted
until you enable and configure that specific service in the plugin settings. If you run only free
events with no CAPTCHA, the plugin makes no external connections.

Paystack (payment gateway)

What it is and why: a payment gateway used to collect votes as payments on paid events.
What is sent and when: when a voter chooses to pay, the plugin loads Paystack’s checkout script
from js.paystack.co and sends the transaction details (amount, currency, a unique reference, and
the voter’s email) to api.paystack.co to create and then verify the payment. Verification also
happens server-to-server against api.paystack.co, and Paystack confirms payments back to your
site via a signed webhook.
Conditions: only on paid votes, and only if you have entered your Paystack API keys.
Terms of service: https://paystack.com/terms
Privacy policy: https://paystack.com/privacy/merchant

Flutterwave (payment gateway)

What it is and why: a payment gateway used to collect votes as payments on paid events.
What is sent and when: when a voter chooses to pay, the plugin loads Flutterwave’s checkout script
from checkout.flutterwave.com and sends the transaction details (amount, currency, a unique
reference, and the voter’s email) to Flutterwave. Verification happens server-to-server against
api.flutterwave.com, and Flutterwave confirms payments back to your site via a signed webhook.
Conditions: only on paid votes, and only if you have entered your Flutterwave API keys and selected
Flutterwave as a gateway.
Terms of service: https://flutterwave.com/terms
Privacy policy: https://flutterwave.com/privacy-policy

Cloudflare Turnstile (optional CAPTCHA)

What it is and why: a bot-protection challenge on the free vote form, used only if you enable
Turnstile as your CAPTCHA provider.
What is sent and when: when the vote form is shown, the challenge widget is loaded from
challenges.cloudflare.com; on submit, the challenge token and the visitor’s IP are sent
server-to-server to challenges.cloudflare.com/turnstile/v0/siteverify to confirm the visitor is
human.
Conditions: only on free-vote submissions, and only if Turnstile is configured.
Terms of service: https://www.cloudflare.com/website-terms/
Privacy policy: https://www.cloudflare.com/privacypolicy/

Google reCAPTCHA (optional CAPTCHA)

What it is and why: a bot-protection challenge on the free vote form, used only if you enable
reCAPTCHA as your CAPTCHA provider.
What is sent and when: when the vote form is shown, the reCAPTCHA widget is loaded from
www.google.com/recaptcha; on submit, the challenge token and the visitor’s IP are sent
server-to-server to www.google.com/recaptcha/api/siteverify to confirm the visitor is human.
Conditions: only on free-vote submissions, and only if reCAPTCHA is configured.
Terms of service: https://policies.google.com/terms
Privacy policy: https://policies.google.com/privacy

Screenshots

The KindlyVote dashboard — live totals, revenue, and top contestants.

Creating a voting event with dates, mode, and price-per-vote. — The KindlyVote dashboard — live totals, revenue, and top contestants.

Installation

Upload the kindlyvote folder to /wp-content/plugins/, or install it from the Plugins screen.
Activate the plugin through the “Plugins” menu in WordPress.
Set your site timezone under Settings General so voting windows are accurate.
Open KindlyVote Settings to choose your currency and, for paid contests, add your payment gateway keys.
Create an Event, add Categories and Contestants.
Place the [kvote_contest] shortcode (shown on the Categories screen) on any page to start voting, and [kvote_leaderboard] to show standings.

FAQ

Do I need to know how to code?: No. You manage everything from the WordPress admin and display contestants with a shortcode you copy
from the Categories screen.
Which payment gateways are supported?: Paystack and Flutterwave. You can enable one or both and choose a primary gateway.
Can I run a completely free election?: Yes. Set an event to “free” mode and no payment is required — ideal for internal or community elections.
Are votes counted before payment is confirmed?: No. Paid votes are recorded only after the gateway’s webhook confirms and the payment is re-verified
on your server. The vote amount is always calculated server-side, so it cannot be tampered with.
How do I display contestants on a page?: Use the [kvote_contest] shortcode. The Categories screen shows the exact shortcode for each category
(with its ID filled in) — just copy and paste it onto any page or post.
Can I limit each person to one vote?: Yes. For free events you can allow one vote per email — per contestant, per category, per event — or
allow unlimited votes. Paid votes are never limited, since each vote is purchased.
Which currencies are supported?: Nigerian Naira (NGN), Ghanaian Cedi (GHS), South African Rand (ZAR), Kenyan Shilling (KES), Rwandan
Franc (RWF), and West African CFA Franc (XOF).
Does uninstalling delete my data?: Only if you choose to. Data is preserved by default; enable “Delete all data on uninstall” in
Settings if you want everything removed when the plugin is deleted.

Reviews

There are no reviews for this plugin.

Contributors & Developers

“KindlyVote” is open source software. The following people have contributed to this plugin.

generalistsam

Translate “KindlyVote” into your language.

Interested in development?

Browse the code, check out the SVN repository, or subscribe to the development log by RSS.

Changelog

1.4.3

Renamed all internal registrations (post types, taxonomy, shortcodes, AJAX actions, capability,
meta keys, and database tables) to use a longer, more distinctive prefix, preventing name
collisions with other plugins. The front-end shortcodes are now [kvote_contest] and
[kvote_leaderboard] (the legacy [kindlyvote_contest] alias still works).

1.4.2

Fixed: a contestant’s video URL now appears as a “Watch video” link on the front-end contestant
card (the field was previously saved but not displayed).

1.4.1

Code-quality and security hardening pass (output escaping and autoloader robustness) plus readme
improvements for the WordPress.org listing.

1.4.0

Front end: the Vote button now opens a modal popup (better on mobile than inline fields).
Settings: a Primary colour option drives vote buttons, leaderboard bars, and highlights.
Dashboard: added KindlyVote Cloud and KindlyVote AI cards.

1.3.2

Dashboard: added a “KindlyVote Cloud” panel highlighting hosted-platform features.

1.3.1

Categories screen now offers a ready-to-copy, category-scoped [kv_leaderboard] shortcode alongside
the contestants one, so leaderboards are scoped by default.

1.3.0

New: contestant photo gallery — add multiple images from the media library (drag to reorder);
thumbnails on the contestant card swap the main photo.

1.2.1

New: a Shortcodes reference page (KindlyVote Shortcodes) documenting every shortcode with
attributes and copy-ready examples.

1.2.0

New: [kv_leaderboard] shortcode — a ranked standings board (by category, event, or overall) with
vote bars and optional photos.

1.1.0

Contestants: added profile fields — brand/business name, contest number, social links, and a video
URL, shown on the front-end contestant cards.
Contestants: set a vote count to an exact number directly (recorded as a single ledger adjustment,
so totals stay auditable).

1.0.10

Voting Logs: added a From / To date-range filter.

1.0.8

New: Voting Logs admin page — a paginated, filterable audit view of every free, paid, and manual
vote (status and voter-email filters).

1.0.7

Voting window: interpret event start/end in the site timezone, and clearly distinguish “Voting
opens on ” (not started) from “Voting has closed”.

1.0.6

Voting form: show the allowed email domain(s) as a hint, with an instant client-side check before
submit (the server still enforces eligibility).

1.0.5

Events: restrict voting to specific email domains (e.g. only @company.com) via a per-event
“Allowed email domains” setting. Applies to free and paid voting.

1.0.4

Anti-fraud: optional CAPTCHA on free voting — Cloudflare Turnstile or Google reCAPTCHA, with
server-side token verification.

1.0.3

Free voting: added a “Free vote limit” setting to control repeat votes from the same email — per
contestant (default), per category, per event, or unlimited.

1.0.2

Flutterwave: reliably dismiss the inline checkout after a successful payment.

1.0.0

Initial build: events, contestants, categories, settings, and lifecycle management.