Online voting systems and services are widely used by many national and international associations for their board of director’s elections.  Lately, we find more and more component groups looking toward online voting systems and services.

As defined on the ASAE website: “Components are an affiliated or independent society, chapter, branch, special-interest group, or division of an international, national, state, regional, or local organization. Component relations professionals make services and benefits come alive for association members through their affiliates.”  These groups could range in size from two members to thousands of members.

The dynamic between national and component organizations varies widely from deep involvement, and shared bylaws, to completely autonomous organizations, both legally and culturally.

Would a component group need to find their own online election vendor directly, or might they be able to rely on their national organization to supply the system and services?  Or would the national organization make a recommendation to the component group about their preferred vendor, and possibly also have a discount set-up?Here’s a summary of Legal Marketing Association Executive Director Betsi Roach’s experience when they included the association‘s chapters in their online voting process:

Initially we used Votenet’s online voting system annually to allow LMA members to ratify our slate of candidates for the international board.  We saw so much success and efficiencies with our initial introduction that we took the opportunity to include chapter  elections in the same online system.  The Legal Marketing Association has a close relationship with our 18 regional chapters, so this additional administrative support offered to them was of great value.

Our support with the election (or slate as the case may be) really takes the burden off the chapters and they are very appreciative. Last year we had 15 of 18 chapters participate in this process. This year we expect all will.  We asked that their elections coincide with international’s slate ratification, providing increased efficiency in our management of the entire process.  Since the international organization maintains the membership database, it’s easy for us to pull the lists of eligible voters for the chapter and have them uploaded to the online voting system.

Does your organization use the same voting system for the main elections and the elections of your component groups? What advantages/challenges does your system have?