Q: What is your company’s mission?

A: Our mission is to enable and encourage active democratic participation in society. We do this through providing platforms and tools to allow citizens, organisations and groups to create their own personal “Democratic Referendums”, hence our name “DemRef”.

We give our democratic participants the ability to create, host and manage polls that change political and social policy through a democratic process – a vote!

Q: Once I’ve created a Poll and I have my result what can I do then?

A: Great question, the value of creating and hosting your own poll is that it enables you to then present the results of your poll to your local councillor, political representative, political leader, organisation leader such as a CEO of a company. You can also use the results of your poll to contact your local press or local, national or international media outlet that might be interested in your issue that led you to create your poll.

Q: How do you make sure that the users who create polls and the people who vote on polls are authentic and not bots or spam accounts?

A: DemRef has systems in place to make sure that when someone creates a poll, we check that this is a “real” person. We ask for some basic information to check the authenticity of the user. We ask for information such as first, last name, post code, we validate email addresses and phone numbers. We understand that this information is private, and we have tools on user dashboards to enable people to control what information they wish to make public and share with the community. To create a poll a user must register for a DemRef account this is a simple and quick process. To protect the authenticity and integrity of the democratic process we will do our utmost to make sure that our users both creators [of polls] and voters are “real” people.

Q: How do you protect my data?

A: DemRef is a cloud company all our data is stored in third party datacentres on secured servers. We adhere to many privacy and security guidelines, principles and of course governing laws in any country that we operate in, rest assured your data is safe and both your and our security is forefront of our operations.

Q: How can I contact support?

A: You can reach our customer support team by emailing us at help@demref.com 24/7 three hundred and sixty-five days of the year we have an SLA to respond to your request with five working days.

Q: How is DemRef funded?

A: DemRef is an independent private company that is also privately funded. We do from time to time accept donations from organisations that also align with our democratic principles, vision and goals to help promote free speech, democracy and furthering a fairer more democratically transparent society. If you wish to donate, please see our “go fund me” page.

Q: Are you aligned to any political party or philosophy?

A: Absolutely not, DemRef is a completely unbiased and neutral democratic platform we exist as a democratic enabler.  We deliberately do not subscribe, support or endorse any political party or social movement. We exist simply as a platform to enable democratic participation for citizens, organizations and groups.

Q: Are you’re a survey company?

A: No, unlike some of our competitors who may reach out to you asking your opinion on a particular product, service or idea we do not that. We are user driven, users create the polls, users share the polls. We will not spam you with market research or try to sell you goods or services from ourselves or indeed third parties.

Q: Whats the difference between a petition, a survey and a poll?

A: This is a great question, Surveys, polls, and petitions are all tools used to collect information or gauge public opinion, but they differ in their purposes, methods, and mechanisms of participation:

DemRef firmly believes that in order to have the purest most unbiased democratic process there is nothing better than asking a community how they feel about a particular issue by simply asking them either a “yes” or “no” vote for example.

Do you intend to vote in the next general election?

Yes
or
No

Occasionally, users may wish to ask a different form of question that requires a multiple-choice answer for example.

In the upcoming general election who will you vote for?

1. Liberal
2. Conservative
3. Labour
4. Independent
5. None of the above

We allow both simple yes or no or multiple-choice options to our polls and its up to the user to select what type of poll they wish to create.

We do get asked to allot what are the differences between a survey, a poll and a petition below we have tried to explain the differences between all three.

1. Survey:

– Purpose: Surveys are systematic research methods used to gather data and insights from a sample of individuals or groups about their attitudes, opinions, behaviours, or characteristics. Surveys can be conducted for various purposes, such as academic research, market research, or public opinion polling.

2. Poll:

– Purpose: A poll is a type of survey specifically designed to measure public opinion or preferences on a specific topic or issue. Polls are often used in political contexts to assess support for candidates, policies, or political parties, but they can also cover other subjects such as consumer preferences or social attitudes.

3. Petition:

– Purpose: A petition is a formal written request or demand signed by a group of people and addressed to a particular authority or organization. Petitions are used to express public opinion, raise awareness about an issue, or advocate for specific changes in policies, laws, or practices.

In summary, surveys, polls, and petitions are all tools used to collect information or express opinions, but they serve different purposes, use different methods, and involve different levels of participation from respondents or supporters.

Here at DemRef we subscribe only to the Poll methodology, we do not telephone, canvas or influence people to participate in our polls. This is all done at grass roots level with and through our users via community forums and sharing via our users own social networks and contacts.