In our series on Practical Ideas to Increase Voter Turnout, one of the ways that organizations are making it easier for voters to vote is to build a single-sign-on system that connects your members-only website with your online ballot. A single-sign-on system streamlines the online voting process by allowing voters to use familiar logins and passwords without having to memorize new information or enter a completely different system.

This helps cut down on things a voter has to keep track of and takes away a potential barrier to voting. An advanced online voting software provider (like Votenet, if we may be honest) will integrate with your organization’s association management system (AMS), connecting the voting process with the database of members and potential voters. That way voters can login through a familiar system and immediately connect with the electronic ballot.

According to Wikipedia, benefits of using a single sign-on system include:

• Reducing opportunities for phishing because users are not trained to enter password everywhere without thinking
• Reducing password fatigue from different user name and password combinations
• Reducing time spent re-entering passwords for the same identity
• Reducing IT costs due to lower number of IT help desk calls about passwords
• Security on all levels of entry/exit/access to systems without the inconvenience of re-prompting users
• Centralized reporting for compliance adherence as well as website traffic monitoring

The bottom line is that organizations need to reduce as many barriers to voting as possible, including the hoops voters need to jump through before voting. How do you streamline the voting process for your voters?

Our Guest Blogger, Leah Cohen Chatinover, is of counsel at Stanger & Arnold, LLP in West Hartford, Connecticut.  She represents nonprofit organizations of all types and can be reached at lchatinover@stangerlaw.com or through her website ct-nonprofitlaw.com. This article is not a substitute for legal advice, and you should contact your attorney with specific questions.

Part Two of Two. Read Part One here.

Statutory Alternatives

In our example (see previous post), Playball’s attorney tired to implement the statutory exceptions to the requirement that directors meet in person. These exceptions can be easily adapted as modern technology progresses and should be incorporated into an organization’s bylaws.

Statutes typically allow meetings to be conducted by any means of communication as long as everyone may simultaneously hear each other.

Statutes typically also permit a board to act by unanimous written consent, if each director signs a consent describing the action to be taken. A director may compel a meeting to discuss an issue simply by withholding consent.

Combining the formality of a unanimous written consent with the simplicity of e-mail, an organization may circulate the proposed resolution as a formal consent attached to an e-mail. The organization must then collect all of the directors’ signatures. In many states, the consent may be signed electronically – \\John H. Smith\\ – for example, and delivered electronically – as a PDF attached to an e-mail.

The distinction between a formal consent attached to an e-mail, and an e-mailed poll of the board may seem inconsequential. But, note three important differences: (1) all directors must vote unanimously (2) the directors must receive a complete description of the proposed resolution and (3) they must “sign” the consent. Read the rest of this entry →

Our Guest Blogger, Leah Cohen Chatinover, is of counsel at Stanger & Arnold, LLP in West Hartford, Connecticut.  She represents nonprofit organizations of all types and can be reached at lchatinover@stangerlaw.com or through her website ct-nonprofitlaw.com. This article is not a substitute for legal advice, and you should contact your attorney with specific questions.

Part One of Two

E-mail, Facebook, Twitter . . .  the diverse modes of electronic communication have exploded over recent years. We are now able to communicate faster, cheaper and with more people simultaneously than ever before.

To busy nonprofit directors, whose schedules make board meetings seem like a luxury, a new trend in nonprofit governance has surfaced that may run afoul of the law – “voting” by e-mail.

This seems like the perfect solution. An issue or opportunity arises that calls for quick response. Directors are reluctant to attend extra meetings. Why not circulate an e-mail, ascertain that there is general agreement and take action?

The ease and speed of e-mail voting is seductively simple. But, this practice is a trap because a board that relies on e-mail voting fails to comply with legal requirements for a proper vote and exposes its decisions to attack. Nonprofit corporate statutes typically provide for board action to be taken either at a meeting (including a meeting by phone or video conference) or by unanimous written consent. Since an e-mail vote technically does not fit either category, a court could consider an e-mail vote nothing more than informal action, which is not legally valid. Even more likely, an attorney representing a nonprofit organization in a loan transaction might not be able to issue the “opinion of counsel” typically required by a lender. This could delay or derail an entire deal.

Let’s take an example. . . 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.

When an active association in the health care industry assigned an inhouse IT director to build an online voting system for their 2,000 members a decade ago, the members embraced the change. But in the next few years, the association doubled in size and the IT director moved on, and the staff discovered they lacked the time and knowledge to maintain the system.

Losing key staff to manage an inhouse online voting system is just one challenge organizations face when they try to use internal resources for their system. In fact, organizations often don’t realize the risk they’re taking when they don’t outsource the project.

Here’s our list of the top four reasons your organization should find a reliable online voting vendor for their elections and other voting events: Read the rest of this entry →

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.

Rich Finstein is the president of CommPartners, an ASAE-Endorsed Business Solutions Provider for webinar and online meeting solutions for associations. CommPartners recently  published a white paper and presented a session at the 2010 ASAE Annual Conference regarding the methodology used by the American Nurses Association (ANA) to move several of their formal governance meetings to a virtual format. We asked him to contribute his experiences about the use of technology for governance in the association industry.

ANA was experiencing significant budget shortfalls last year and were pressed into finding ways to reduce costs. They typically would pay for their board to come to Washington and cover accommodations and meals. Moving to a virtual format had the potential to save them over a hundred thousand dollars for two meetings held in the fall of last year. The economics were promising, however serious questions had to be answered:

1. Could they have formal deliberations that included Roberts Rules of Order?
2. Could they handle emotionally charged issues in virtual format? How would participants react when they were not face to face?
3. What would be the impact on morale of the board? Would they welcome this change?
4. What resources were needed to manage this process?

Read the rest of this entry →