Does your organization provide a type of election guide to help voters determine which candidates are more closely aligned with their views?

In the U.S., voters in political elections have often relied on leaflets and online information from organizations such as the League of Women Voters that offer summaries of candidates’ stands on major issues as well as explanations of other important votes. Voters have to read through the information to determine which candidate best represents his or her viewpoints.

But in the United Kingdom, India, Peru, Greece and other countries, voting advice applications (VAAs) offer a much more guided path to helping voters choose the right candidates. The systems, like this one for an upcoming election in Kerala, ask voters to rate a series of statements that indicate their views on a variety of topics, such as “Seats should be reserved for women in the state legislative assembly” and “The government should impose more tax on high income earners to reduce the gap between rich and poor.” The application correlates the responses with information from the candidates and recommends the best matches.

Follow-up research regarding the 2007 Swiss federal elections revealed that VAAs have a positive impact on voter turnout overall, and people who took the quizzes were more motivated to vote, especially younger voters. But VAAs can present challenges as well. Read the rest of this entry →

In many association elections, candidates fill out a written form and perhaps upload a headshot to help voters decide who to elect. But in today’s society where YouTube is the number two search engine after Google, associations that encourage candidates to create short intro videos can increase their presence on the web as well as generate buzz for the election.

When we asked our clients how they increased voter turnout in elections (See 22 Practical Ideas to Increase Voter Turnout), we discovered several associations helped their candidates create intro videos to help voters decide. The Special Libraries Association created SLA-TV to showcase candidate Q&A sessions, statements and other association video. They said the videos not only help the candidates come to life for the voters — they also show the members that SLA is on top of new technology.

A recent article in ASAE’s Communication News offered 10 Ways to Get More Out of Your Videos. We’ve respectfully borrowed some of the author’s tips to help your organization leverage candidate videos into bigger visibility.

1. Know Your Brand, Show Your Brand
   Give your candidates guidelines to create their videos, then use video editing software to add your organization’s logo and the name of the election. SLA helps candidates produce great videos by recording them at their annual conferences.  That way the videos look uniform and professional, and SLA controls the branding. Read the rest of this entry →

In 2010, the town of Cobourg in Southern Ontario switched to a 100% paperless election, offering voters the chance to vote online or by telephone — but no longer by paper ballots. Voters without internet or telephone access could vote using electronic voting booths at one of two polling places on election day.

This week the city released an analysis of its election to determine if the gradual switch to paperless was a success.  The results showed that voter turnout increased to 47.3% from 44.9% in 2006, which was the last year they had a 100% paper election. In addition, the budget for the 2006 paper-ballot election was almost $90,000, and the 2010 paperless election cost $52,460.

Municipal Clerk Lorraine Brace also said the switch to online voting had other benefits, including faster election results, an increase in votes cast in long-term care facilities and an increase in the number of seniors who used the computer for the first time (see post on Will Older Voters Embrace Online Voting?).

The council discussed ways to improve the paperless voting system for 2011, including creating a receipt for voters to let them know their votes had been accepted, as well as additional physical polling stations in high-density areas of town.

Watch Votenet’s latest webinar, “Top Ten Considerations for Bringing Your Elections Online,” held in conjunction with the Avectra Academy, or download the PowerPoint here.

The Votenet team regularly creates white papers, benchmark studies and tip sheets to help you improve voter turnout and understand the issues around voting events, both online and traditional. Click here to view the Votenet resource library, and sign up to receive emails on upcoming webinars and new resources.

As online voting becomes more accepted for associations and corporations, homeowner associations are following suit. A recent change in legislation in Virginia now allows homeowner associations to conduct voting events electronically.

The changes spell out guidelines for voting with the new technologies available. Specifically, the regulation allows for qualified homeowners and their representatives to perform any obligation or exercise “by use of any technological means providing sufficient security, reliability, identification, and verifiability.” Those four provisions are key points in choosing the proper online voting system. It’s critical that as homeowner associations consider online voting systems that they examine the potential online voting vendor in each of the four provisions.

In addition, the new Virginia regulations require homeowner associations to make reasonable accommodations for qualified voters who lack the technology to respond electronically. Again, this is a critical integration that ensures convenience for all voters. Any online voting system for homeowners should have an easy way to integrate both paper ballots and phone voting to make sure all voters can participate.

This is the first in a two-part series of guest posts from Association Social Media Guru Andy Steggles, author of Social Networking for Nonprofits: Increased Engagement in a Mobile and Web 2.0 World. Mr. Steggles speaks and writes about engaging members and the true way to calculate the lifetime value of an association member.

When most people think about the average lifetime value of a member, they quickly try to calculate the average length of membership and multiply it by the average dollars spent per member in a year. While this is the traditional method, it’s also a very narrow way of viewing value. A member may have never attended a conference or event. What if a member only pays dues and no other money to the association? Does this make them less valuable than a member who may otherwise spend much more money? LTV needs to be more holistic and embrace not just dollars spent but value provided.

LTV 2.0 is an emerging area which provides a more inclusive way of measuring who our most valuable members are. For example, I may have renewed my dues every year for the past 10 years with an average renewal price of $200 per year. LTV 1.0 would give me a value of $2000. However, this doesn’t take into account the 5 years I have served as a chapter officer, or the 3 years on a committee or perhaps the articles I’ve written for the association magazines and newsletters. It also doesn’t value types of engagement that are core to who we are and what we do – voting.

Now let’s take this a step further and consider the emerging online tools available such as blogs, wikis, file sharing and voting systems. When we look at these different engagement opportunities, we are not just talking about casting a vote, we’re talking about listening to a member – hearing their views and perhaps even segmenting them accordingly (if the type of vote warranted it). If a member takes the time to understand the issue or candidates, provides feedback and, ultimately, casts their vote, then he should be considered more valuable than those who don’t. After all, isn’t voter turnout an indicator of membership health? Read the rest of this entry →

Campaign managers are constantly trying new techniques to get out the vote in support of candidates. The latest trend? Text messaging. In this year’s gubernatorial race in Connecticut, candidate Ned Lamont is using text messages to urge registered voters to vote for him in the August primary.

According to a recent article on the New Haven Independent website, the campaign will spend about $20,000 on text messaging, asking supporters to “Text Ned” to register their cell numbers in the system. Campaign organizers said studies show text messaging is more effective than traditional techniques, sometimes increasing voter turnout by up to 7%. They estimated that phone calls right before the election may help 1-2%, while door-to-door visits can increase numbers up to 4%.

Would you be more likely to vote if your candidate reminded you via text message? Or has your organization tried mass text messaging to increase participation in voting or other events?