Voting
Voting is a popular form of interactivity which gives audiences the chance to participate and to see a result but votes linked to a programme or website will only represent those people who have chosen to respond and should be clearly reported as such. They should not be reported with the editorial prominence of carefully conducted opinion polls.
We should ensure the robustness of the voting mechanism matches the vote's editorial significance and that output which relies on voting is normally based on a vote run or directly commissioned by the BBC.
We must take particular care about the robustness and integrity of votes for competitive awards from the earliest stages in order to protect the integrity of the programmes around which they are built. A great deal may ride on the result for participants as well as lobby or campaigning organisations who may have a strong interest in the outcome of the result. High profile programmes built around the voting process can lead to a public award such as Sports Personality of the Year, or an award which involves money or opportunity, such as Restoration or a talent competition.
We should normally publish rules when running votes so that, for example, we can disqualify for cheating or fraud.
We should allow enough time in the period between closing the vote and announcing the result for the votes to arrive, be processed and checked and consider carefully whether to announce running totals before the final verified result.