Documentation for JIRA 4.2. Documentation for other versions of JIRA is available too.
JIRA allows you to vote for a particular issue — "voicing" your preference for that issue to be resolved or completed. JIRA also allows you to watch a particular issue, signing up for notifications of any updates relating to that issue (provided an appropriate notification scheme has been set up for the project by your JIRA administrator).
If you have the correct permissions (see below), you can also view the voter and watcher lists for an issue and, you can manage the watcher list — that is, add other people to the watcher list. This is useful if you need to draw someone's attention to a particular issue.
The voter and watcher lists are shown in at the right of the screen when viewing an issue:
Screenshot: an Issue's 'Votes and Watchers' section
You can:
Screenshot: Watchers List
JIRA incorporates two permissions to govern who may view/edit the voter and watcher lists:
These permissions are granted by your JIRA administrator, through a Permission Scheme.
Please note: It is not possible to edit the voter list.