About Common Cove
A noticeboard of practical tools for the people who keep community groups running.
What it is
Common Cove has five free tools for meetings and elections: a ranked-choice vote counter that shows every round, an approval and score voting tally, a meeting minutes template, a quorum calculator and a motions cheat sheet based on Robert's Rules of Order. They are made for volunteer secretaries, chairs and returning officers in clubs, societies, residents' associations, student groups and small boards.
How it works
Every tool runs in your browser. Ballots you type or paste, CSV files you open and the minutes you write are processed on your device and are never uploaded. Your work and settings are kept in your browser's local storage so they are there when you come back, and you can clear them at any time. Once a page has loaded it keeps working offline.
What it is not
Common Cove is not an online voting service: it counts ballots you have already collected. It is not legal advice either. The counting methods and procedural defaults are explained on each page with their sources, but your organisation's constitution, bylaws, standing orders and any applicable law always take precedence. For a contested or legally binding election, have the count checked by someone independent.
Sources
The motions cheat sheet and the voting thresholds follow Robert's Rules of Order Newly Revised, 12th edition (2020), checked against the official Robert's Rules website and published 12th-edition motion charts. The ranked-choice options follow the rules documented for RCTab, an open-source ranked-choice tabulator. Each page lists what it relies on.