Votenet’s recent survey of Higher Education Institutions revealed that more than 70% are using some sort of online voting for their student government elections, and that switching to online voting increased voter turnout more than 50%. Two-Year College respondents reported an average increase of 125%!

Guest Blogger Beth Ziesenis owns Avenue Z Writing Solutions in San Diego, California.

Yesterday I received a large plastic envelope in the mail from Bank of America. I own their stock, and inside was a ballot asking me to vote on two questions: whether we should increase the amount of stock available and whether the board of directors could hold a special meeting to appoint proxies if enough people didn’t vote on the stock increase issue.

Thousands and thousands of these packets were mailed around the world. Each packet contained several pieces of paper and a plastic wrapper. The expense for postage, printing and plastic must have been enormous, not to mention the environmental waste factor. And the accounting of this project needs to factor in the labor involved in receiving the handwritten ballots for tallying. The ballot called for a signature, and since both my partner’s and my name are on the account, I had to track him down to get him to sign as well, to make sure my vote would be counted. Then I put the vote into another oversized self-addressed, stamped envelope and put the ballot in the mail.

As a stockholder, I would like to see Bank of America do well, and I’m very disappointed in this wasteful exercise. Read the rest of this entry →

In a recent Votenet survey of more than 100 associations who use online voting, association staff shared insights that can help other associations make the decisions about when to switch to online voting.

1. Voter Turnout Is Likely To Increase after the Switch, but Associations Need to Communicate to Maximize Results
   Many associations assume that their voter turnout will go up as soon as they switch to online voting. While online voting generally makes it easier for voters to cast their ballots, it does not necessarily guarantee a dramatic increase in voter turnout. The associations that participated in the survey overwhelmingly cited marketing and increased communication and reminders as the best ways to increase voter turnout in online elections.
2. Associations Are Likely to Save Time and Money after the Switch, but the First Year Is a Transition
   To effectively transition to online voting, associations may need to use more time and incur additional expense to inform members of the upcoming changes of the format of the election. However, after this initial transition and after members become accustomed to the new voting process, associations are likely to see significant time and cost savings.
3. Voters Will Embrace the Technology if the Process is Intuitive
   Associations are sometimes resistant to switching to online elections because they fear their members will not accept or understand the new technology. Those associations may spend extra time and money duplicating efforts by mailing paper ballots to voters and offering online voting. A better way to handle the transition is to focus on implementing a simple, intuitive process that makes online voting less intimidating. A simple governance program with an easy-to-use voting application that is explained to voters well in advance of the election will encourage participation.

Chris Rigel, Director of Programs and Operations for the Society of Environmental Journalists, responded to some questions from Votenet’s Libah Grossman about SEJ’s experience with eBallot. Libah is a senior elections consultant with Votenet. SEJ had several serious goals in seeking the right secure, online solution for their annual board elections, and they accomplished all of them. In the past SEJ had provided their members with paper ballot packets via U.S. mail and during their annual meeting.

Libah: Why did SEJ decide to explore online voting?

Chris: Because you kept calling me! But really because we wanted to save staff time, paper and postage, plus make it easier for our members to vote.

Libah: Why did you choose eBallot?

Chris: Because you kept calling me! But also because the service and support looked great  – and turned out to be great.

Libah: What did you accomplish by using eBallot?

Chris:  We saved staff time and money, used less paper (practically none instead of half a forest) and more than doubled our voting numbers. Read the rest of this entry →

To benchmark the election and voting trends in the association and non-profit community, Votenet Solutions and partners surveyed almost 450 associations and professional societies, ranging from regional organizations with less than 100 voting members to international societies with more than 130,000 eligible voters. The survey asked about types of votes conducted, voter turnout, voting methods, election management and online voting.

Download the White Paper Here….

Andrew Spar is president of the Volusia Teachers Organization. His guest post focuses on the increases in both voting accuracy and process efficiency when the organization switched to Votenet’s eBallot three years ago.

I don’t think I can say enough about how online voting has improved our voting process before, during and after an election or contract ratification vote.

Before online voting, setting up a voting event used to take dozens of volunteers and hours of effort from every member of our staff. We have 2-3 voting events a year and eligible voters in about 75 schools. Our staff would spend hours (and lots of paper and postage) to send information packets to each eligible voter before the election. Then we would have to recruit volunteers for each voting site, and the volunteers would have to set up polling places, sometimes both before and after regular school hours. Volunteers would have to make their own ballot boxes (two if they had morning and afternoon voting), then drive the ballots back to our office. I remember one time several of the volunteers could not make it to the office, and our staff had to drive literally hundreds of miles in one afternoon to collect the boxes.

Read the rest of this entry →