Implement full ballot creation and admin setup flow

[grantfox-oss]

Problem
The ballot creation flow is the foundation of everything in
AnonVote and it is incomplete at every layer. The backend route
accepts a title and deadline but does not validate option arrays,
does not enforce minimum or maximum option counts, and does not
anchor the ballot to Stellar on creation — meaning ballots exist
only in the database with no on-chain record. The frontend form
has no dynamic option management, no timezone-aware deadline
picker, and no feedback when creation fails. There are zero tests
covering ballot creation on either the backend or frontend.

Additionally the admin authentication flow has no session
expiry handling — an admin token issued 30 days ago is still
accepted as valid, which is a security gap that needs to be
closed as part of hardening this flow.

Solution
Implement the complete ballot creation and admin setup flow
so an admin can configure a ballot end to end, have it anchored
to Stellar on creation, and manage it from a properly secured
dashboard.

Backend

• Validate all ballot creation inputs — title length, minimum
  2 and maximum 10 options, deadline must be at least 1 hour
  in the future, all fields required
• Return structured field-level validation errors so the frontend
  can highlight exactly which input failed
• Call create_ballot on the Soroban contract via Stellar SDK
  immediately after database write — store the returned
  transaction ID against the ballot record in the database
• If the Soroban call fails, do not roll back the database
  write — instead mark the ballot as pending_anchor and queue
  a background retry so ballot creation is never blocked by
  a transient Stellar network issue
• Implement session expiry on admin JWT — tokens older than
  8 hours must be rejected with a 401 and a SESSION_EXPIRED
  error code
• Add GET /admin/ballots route that returns all ballots for
  the authenticated admin with status, vote count, and
  Stellar anchor status

Frontend

• Build the full ballot creation form — title input with
  character count, dynamic option list with add and remove
  controls, minimum 2 options enforced client-side, timezone
  aware deadline picker that displays the admin's local time
  but submits UTC
• Display field-level validation errors inline next to the
  relevant input — not as a single generic toast
• Show Stellar anchor status on the ballot detail page —
  anchored with transaction link, pending, or failed with
  a manual retry button
• Handle SESSION_EXPIRED error globally — redirect to login
  with a clear message rather than showing a broken state
• Build the admin ballot list with status tabs — draft,
  active, closed — and a search input

Tests

• Unit tests for ballot creation validation — missing fields,
  invalid deadline, too few options, too many options
• Unit test for JWT expiry enforcement — expired token returns
  401 with SESSION_EXPIRED code
• Unit test for pending_anchor retry queue — Soroban failure
  queues retry without rolling back database write
• Component tests for the ballot creation form — validation
  errors display correctly, option add and remove work,
  deadline picker submits UTC
• Integration test covering full creation flow from form
  submission to Stellar anchor confirmation

Acceptance Criteria

• All ballot creation inputs are validated with field-level
  error responses
• Ballot is anchored to Stellar on creation with transaction
  ID stored in the database
• Soroban failure queues a retry without blocking ballot
  creation
• Admin JWT tokens older than 8 hours are rejected with
  SESSION_EXPIRED
• Admin ballot list shows correct status and anchor state
  for each ballot
• Deadline is always stored and processed as UTC regardless
  of admin timezone
• All unit, component, and integration tests pass

Note for contributors
The pending_anchor retry mechanism is important — do not make
ballot creation dependent on Stellar network availability.
The database is the source of truth for ballot state. Stellar
is the auditability layer. A transient Stellar outage must
never prevent an admin from creating a ballot.

[clintjeff2]

Hello, I have 6 years of experience working on tasks like this and handling similar challenges across backend, frontend, and smart-contract development. I have carefully read and fully understood the task requirements, and I am confident I can deliver a clean, efficient, and well-tested solution promptly. I always ensure high-quality implementation, maintainability, and adherence to best practices.

Pull request in 8 hours

[CollinsC1O]

I will love to work on this issue and provide implementations that resolves it. ETA: <5hrs

[grantfox-oss]

🦊 GrantFox — @clintjeff2 has been assigned to this issue as part of the Official Campaign campaign!

Next steps:

1. Open a Pull Request referencing this issue (e.g., Closes #9)
2. Your PR will be reviewed by the AnonVote maintainers

Good luck! Track your progress on GrantFox.