Sealed and anonymous ballots
Hide the running tally until the reveal with sealed votes, or hide who voted for what with anonymous voting.
Group votes get weird when everyone can watch the score. Limbo has two privacy switches that keep ballots honest: sealed votes and anonymous voting. They solve different problems, and you can combine them.
Who can do what: every crew member votes on sealed and anonymous ballots exactly like any other ballot. Only the trip owner can turn these settings on or off — organizers and members will not see the privacy controls.
Sealed votes: no peeking until the reveal
Sealed votes hide the tally while voting is open, so nobody bandwagons onto the leading option. Sealed is on by default for new proposals.
While a sealed ballot is open:
- Yes, no, and abstain counts are completely hidden — for everyone, including organizers.
- You can see participation only: a "Votes sealed until the reveal" banner and "4 of 7 have voted" with the voters' avatars. Who has voted is visible; what they voted is not.
- Your own vote is always visible to you. The ballot shows "Your vote: Yes (only you can see this)" so you know it was counted.
Note
Sealed ballots never resolve early just because the approval threshold is reached. With one vote in, the yes share could be 100% — ending the election there would crown the first voter. A sealed ballot only resolves when everyone has voted or the deadline passes.
When a sealed ballot resolves, the reveal shows everything at once: the verdict stamp, the full tallies, who voted for what (unless the ballot is also anonymous), and who didn't vote.
Anonymous voting: identities never revealed
Anonymous voting hides who voted for what — permanently. While the ballot is open and even after the reveal:
- Only the tallies are shown. There are no voter rows at all.
- The reveal card notes "Votes were anonymous — tallies only" instead of listing names and choices.
- Anonymity protects choices, not participation: Limbo still shows who has voted so far, and the reveal still lists who didn't vote.
Tip
For maximum privacy, turn on both: sealed hides the score until the deadline, anonymous makes sure nobody ever learns how you voted. Useful for "do we really want to invite Dave's plus-one" decisions.
Configuring ballot privacy
ownerOnly the trip owner can change these settings — the app hides the controls from everyone else, and the change is rejected for non-owners even if attempted another way.
- 1Open the trip's voting dashboard.
- 2Tap the settings cog (visible to the trip owner only).
- 3Find the Ballot privacy section.
- 4Toggle Sealed votes and/or Anonymous voting.
- 5Tap the checkmark to save.
These are trip-wide defaults: they apply to proposals going forward. If an organizer reopens a resolved ballot, its sealed setting carries over to the fresh vote.
Heads up
One exception to sealing: an organizer can end any open ballot early with Decide now. That reveals the tally on the spot — sealed or not — and the override is recorded in the trip log. See Organizer powers.