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. The file should look something like this: 1. When I deploy, I create an account for the election, as the mysql root user: mysql -u root -p Password: Then Run these commands at the mysql> prompt: CREATE USER 'someusername' identified by 'somepassword'; CREATE DATABASE somedbname; Then, exit, and at the main command line run: msyql -u root -p -D somedbname < ..../vote/include/schema.sql Then run this again: mysql -u root -p Password: and at the mysql command line, run these grant commands: GRANT SELECT on somedb.elections TO someuser@localhost; GRANT SELECT on somedb.election_choices TO someuser@localhost; 2. Create an election, with something like this: mysql -u root -D somedb -p SET NAMES 'utf8'; INSERT t INTO elections (type, name, voting_start, voting_end, choices_nb, question) VALUES ("elections", "2011 Spring Election", "2011-05-29 00:00:00", "2011-06-12 23:59:59", "7", "Which candidates would you like to see Elected?"); set @el_id = @@IDENTITY; INSERT INTO election_choices (election_id, choice) VALUES (@el_id, 'Candidate 1'), (@el_id, 'Candidate 2'), (@el_id, 'Candidate 3'), (@el_id, 'Candidate 4'); select @el_id; That number you see at the end is your election id. The URL you'll give out is thus something like: http://example.org/vote?election_id=THAT_NUMBER