How do you make an 'enum' that has data tied to it?

Question

I have a Vote class and one of the properties it can have is a vote type. Such as unanimous, a 3/4 vote, a simply majority, etc. Each type needs to have a string associated with

Answer 1

Since you have the type and description I'll better suggest you to create a class that wraps up both instead of enum. The advantage is you can reduce more work and it's very flexible.

public class VoteType
{
   public string Name{ get; set; }
   public string Description{ get; set; }
}

Now your Vote class will have reference to this VoteType.

public class Vote
{
   ...
   public VoteType Type{ get; set; }
}

In your VoteViewModel you better have a class that contains all the VoteTypes.

public class VoteViewModel
{
   ...
   public IEnumerable VoteTypes{ get; set; }
}

Now you can easily bind the VoteTypes in a dropdownlist.

@model VoteViewModel

@Html.DropDiwnListFor(m => m.VoteTypes,...)