diff --git a/plugins/poll/plugin.rb b/plugins/poll/plugin.rb
index 85c9f5632cf..44f818cabd5 100644
--- a/plugins/poll/plugin.rb
+++ b/plugins/poll/plugin.rb
@@ -281,7 +281,7 @@ after_initialize do
           user_hash = UserNameSerializer.new(user).serializable_hash
 
           # protect against poorly denormalized data
-          poll_votes.dig(user.id.to_s, poll_name)&.each do |option_id|
+          poll_votes&.dig(user.id.to_s, poll_name)&.each do |option_id|
             if (params[:option_id])
               next unless option_id == params[:option_id].to_s
             end