Setting up an election: 0. vote/include/election-sql.php expects a secret config file that exists only on the server and is included as PHP code. It's hard coded currently to: /home/admin/secret/anonvoting currently. You at least need to set these variables in it: $mysql_host $mysql $mysql_password $mysql_db 1. When I deploy, I create an account for the election, as the mysql root user: mysql -u root -p Password: mysql> CREATE USER 'someusername' identified by 'somepassword'; mysql> CREATE DATABASE somedbname;