Ballot Online — Voting Platform

Overview​

Ballot Online is a full-stack voting platform that demonstrates modern web architecture with GraphQL at its core. The backend is a Django application using Graphene-Django — models are automatically transformed into a GraphQL schema, eliminating the need to manually define resolvers for CRUD operations. The frontend is a Gatsby.js React application using Apollo Client for data fetching.

Users can register accounts, create poll questions, browse existing questions, and cast votes. The platform uses JWT-based authentication with Django's session system, and the frontend serves as a static Progressive Web App via Gatsby.

Key Features​

• Auto-generated GraphQL schema: Django models are converted to GraphQL types by Graphene-Django — no manual schema definition needed
• JWT authentication: Secure user registration, login, and session management
• Question creation: Users create voting questions with multiple options
• Voting on questions: Cast votes through GraphQL mutations
• Static frontend: Gatsby.js pre-renders the React application for fast page loads and SEO
• Apollo Client: Optimistic UI updates make voting feel instantaneous

Architecture​

A backend + frontend split with GraphQL as the communication layer:

The backend runs Django on port 8004 with Gunicorn for production. The frontend is built as a static Gatsby site and served through Nginx. The project uses a Makefile for build scripts and environment configuration.

Data Flow​

User Action → Apollo Client → GraphQL Mutation/Query → Django Graphene → SQL → PostgreSQL
                                      ↓
                              Optimistic UI Update (before server response)

All mutations use Apollo's optimistic response pattern — the UI updates immediately, then reconciles when the server confirms.

Tech Stack​