.vote Domain: An Address for Elections and Ballots
The .vote extension entered the root zone on 13 February 2014; its ICANN agreement is dated 21 November 2013 and the contracting party is Monolith Registry LLC, part of Identity Digital. Election campaigns, referendum information sites, association and chamber elections, shareholder ballots and participatory decision tools all take names here.
The agreement carries no additional public interest commitment and no community section, so there is neither a requirement of political use nor a rule shutting out non-political use. On 14 August 2026 the zone held 9,329 registrations. Try a campaign, an organisation or a ballot name as the root and compare on the .vote domain search page.
Three extensions in this range share the idea of voting, and they are not the same thing. .vote and .voto answer to the same registry operator, carry an agreement of the same date and entered the root on the same day; the only difference between them is language. .voting belongs to a different registry operator, has its own agreement and runs a far smaller zone. The decision rule: choose the first for an English-speaking audience and the second for Spanish and Portuguese markets; look at the third if you want to stress the act rather than the process.
.VOTE Domain at a Glance
- Registry operator Monolith Registry LLC (Identity Digital)
- Root zone entry 13 February 2014
- Agreement 21 November 2013; carries no additional public interest commitment
- Language twin Same registry and same agreement date as .voto
- Zone size 9,329 registrations (14 August 2026)
- Document Requirement No documents are required to register a .vote domain
- Character Length 1 - 63 characters
- Registration Period 1 - 10 years
- Name Server Count 2 - 10 servers
.vote Domain Prices — No Surprise Fees
Registration, transfer and renewal fees are listed separately. The renewal price can differ from the first-year price, so you see both up front.
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New Registration
$37.99 / years -
Transfer
$90.99 / years -
Renewal
$97.99 / years -
Restore
$199.90 -
Late Renewal
$15.36
Included With Every .vote Domain
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Free DNS management
Change A, MX, TXT and CNAME records yourself from the panel — no waiting on anyone when you move a site or mailbox.
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Domain lock
While the lock is on, nobody can move your domain to another registrar without your approval.
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Domain forwarding
Point the domain at your existing site, a campaign page or a social profile — at no extra cost.
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Free WHOIS privacy
Your name, address and phone stay out of public WHOIS records, which cuts down spam and scam calls.
.vote Domain Lifecycle
Domain lifecycle
The stages in order, from registration to releaseDomain Is Available (Available)
A .vote address at this stage has not been taken yet, and it goes to whoever registers first. Check the name you have in mind — if it is free, it can be yours within minutes.
Domain Is Active (Active Period)
Once registration is complete, the domain is registered to you for the term you selected. You can renew at any point before it expires to keep it active, or switch on auto-renewal so you never have to watch the date.
Redemption Period (Redemption Period)
The domain is not released the moment it expires — during this window it is still yours and can be recovered. Some extensions charge an extra restore fee at this stage, so renewing before expiry is always the cheaper route.
Pending Delete Period (Pending Delete Period)
If the redemption window is missed too, the domain enters the final stage and waits to be deleted. Renewal and recovery are no longer possible here; when the period ends the registration is removed for good.
Domain Is Available Again
Once deletion completes, the domain leaves the system and anyone can register it — popular names are often taken the same minute by someone watching. Keep auto-renewal on so a name you care about never gets this far.
.vote Domain Specifications and Registration Rules
Registration conditions, supported features and the registry's own timelines in a single table.
.vote Domain Registration
- Document Requirement No documents are required to register a .vote domain
- Character Length 1 - 63 characters
- Registration Period 1 - 10 years
- Name Server Count 2 - 10 servers
.vote Domain Support
- IDN Support Yes
- Transfer Support Yes
- Late Renewal Support Yes
.vote Domain Registration Periods
- Registration Periods 1,2,3,4,5,6,7,8,9,10 years
- Renewal Periods 1,2,3,4,5,6,7,8,9 years
- Pre-registration 1 days
- Accounting Period 45 days
- Finalization Period 1 days
- Failure Period 45 days
- Payment Period 45 days
- Redemption Period 30 days
- Deletion Hold Period 30 days
- Renewal Time 30 Day
Frequently Asked Questions About .vote Domains
The questions people actually ask before registering — answered plainly.
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It can. The agreement contains no community section and no additional public interest commitment, so no rule confines use to politics. The zone also holds association and chamber elections, shareholder ballots, residents' decisions, internal staff surveys and product votes. The decision rule: if the function of your page is to collect a preference the extension explains itself, and if it is not, the extension stays decorative.
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The difference is linguistic rather than legal: both answer to the same registry operator, carry an agreement of the same date and entered the root on the same day. The choice follows the language of your audience entirely. English-speaking campaigns read naturally with the first, Spanish and Portuguese markets with the second. If you work in both languages, taking both and forwarding one is a common solution; review the other zone on the .voto domain search page.
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Election addresses look short-lived but carry archive value: links, press citations and search results stay alive for years. If you drop the address, a third party can take it and point those same links at entirely different content. Two options work in practice: renew the address and forward it to an archive page, or set a permanent redirect to the organisation's main site. In either case, leave automatic renewal switched on.
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Three things stand out. An encrypted connection is mandatory, because participation data and often identity details are collected; pick a suitable option from the SSL certificate page. The second is load resilience: voting traffic peaks in short bursts. The third is record keeping; because results can be challenged, system logs need to be retained.
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The registry supports internationalised domain names, and IANA publishes a large number of language tables for this extension, the widest coverage in this range. In practice every character in a name must come from the same script. For campaigns that want to keep local spelling, the practical method is to take the accented name and also register the unaccented form, then forward one to the other.
Get Help for .vote Domain Registration
Need help registering a .vote domain? Our team is ready to assist.
