Why are there no good online voting/election tools that are also free?
I'm looking for a voting/election tool to conduct a large variety of surveys. The type of survey may be anything from less serious ("pancakes or cookies at the party?") to more serious/official/anonymous (elections). Surveys are typically small: there are few questions with possible answers being mostly yes/no or a list of candidate names (elections). The number of participants in the surveys might become large (<10 to >1000). Fancy features (e.g. statistics, user behaviour, ...) are not required. For the more serious surveys/elections, reliability is a key requirement.
There are a large variety of survey tools online available, which I would categorize like this:
1. Professional: They offer a range of plans (usually a basic plan/trial is free) and are rich in features; they typically work well. PROBLEM: Usually expensive; their low-end (free/cheap) plans are often limited in users (e.g. free for <30 participants).
2. Hobby: These are limited in features but free; they don't always work well. PROBLEM: Unreliable. It's hard to get people to vote as it is. People receiving multiple invitations to vote is problematic. People receiving no invitation to vote is unacceptable in some cases (e.g. elections).
I'm a firm enemy of NIH, so it would be preferable if some alternative could be found.