Polls configuration

Writing a poll

Press + New poll on the Polls tab and fill in the card:

• Internal name, which only you see, for telling polls apart in the dashboard.
• Question, and two to six Options. Enter moves to the next option; the arrows reorder them.
• Show results after voting. On, readers see the running tally once they've voted; off, they get a thank-you.
• Closes at end of a date (UTC). After that the links keep working but show the final result instead of taking a vote. Leave it blank for a poll with no end.
• Enabled. Disabling pulls the poll entirely, so old email links show "poll not found". To stop voting but keep the results at the links, set a close date instead.

Save is what makes voting live; changes reach voters within a minute.

Where readers vote

An email reader votes by clicking an answer, which opens a page where they confirm with one tap. That confirmation is deliberate: email security scanners open every link in a message, and a vote is never cast by opening a link, so your numbers stay your readers'. With no post linked, that tap happens on a hosted confirmation page.

Link to a post picks the Ghost post the poll is pasted into (published, scheduled, draft, or email-only), and email votes then land right in that post on your site, preselected, with the same one tap. Keep the poll above any paywall, since email readers may not be signed in on the web. If the post's address changes, the link heals the next time you Save.

Use in the next newsletter digest queues an unlinked poll for the Newsletter Digests tool: the next issue with a Poll section picks up the oldest queued poll, links it to that issue, and takes it off the queue, so you never paste anything.

The snippet

Press Copy email snippet on the card, add an HTML card in the Ghost editor where the poll should appear, and paste. The same snippet works in both renders. In the email, Ghost fills in each reader's membership id, so votes are one per member and the reader is never asked to sign in. On the web, the included script turns the block into a live poll: a signed-in member votes in place and sees the results without leaving the page; a signed-out visitor sees a sign-in prompt instead of a vote. Preview snippet HTML shows what you're pasting.

Voting is members-only in both channels, and re-voting changes your vote rather than adding one. Polls take your site's accent colour from Ghost, so the block matches your theme.

Analytics

The Analytics tab shows each poll's question with the count for every answer and the total. It's totals only: the dashboard never shows who chose what, and it can't be made to.

Contributor access

If you give a contributor a Polls grant (Site settings → Users), manage lets them create and change polls.