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.

Organizations with older voters sometimes express concern about taking voting events online. Will their senior voters embrace the new technology and cast their votes online?

The AARP thinks so. In a recent studies by the AARP and the Pew Internet and American Life survey, researchers reported that more than 60% of respondents age 50 and older are comfortable online. In fact, Americans born before 1955 make up 51% of the US population and more than 46% of Internet users. Another finding was that the vast majority of adults from all generations regularly use email for communication. (Read more points from the studies here.)

So why do we still have the perception that seniors will reject an online vote? Perhaps voting administrators have experience with a vocal minority — the handful of voters who voice their complaints about a transition to online voting. The same handful of people are the ones that may express discontent about any sort of change. At Votenet, we’ve found that the transition is generally smooth, and a quality online voting vendor should be able to integrate paper balloting options into a voting event to make sure all the voters can feel comfortable participating.

What has been your experience with older voters?

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 →

Think back to the year 2000, when we were worried about the Y2K bug and  enjoying the second season of Survivor. George W. Bush defeated Al Gore for the White House after a controversial election, and Julia Roberts won best actress for her portrayal of consumer advocate Erin Brockovich. Back then, we were still on the fourth Harry Potter book, waiting for the first movie. But what kind of role did technology play in our daily lives?

The team at Votenet recently took a look at the changes of the last decade and put together a Then-and-Now comparison for technology and communication trends for today versus the turn of the century.

The changes are astounding. We’ve seen a 15 percent decrease in letters mailed daily, and the number of daily emails has increased more than 20,000 percent! In 2000, we spent just less than 3 hours a week online, and now most of us average about 18 hours. iTunes wasn’t even around in 2000, and today we’ve reached 10 billion downloads.

These changes have important implications for the world of online voting. With our increasing reliance on technology in our daily lives, we’re much more comfortable with interacting online. In 2000, Votenet had 2 (yes, just t-w-o) early adopter customers who took their voting online with a total of about 50,000 voters served. This year we are approaching 15 million voters served with more than 1400 customers and 24,000+ voting events. That’s a 700 percent increase in organizations who have embraced online voting and 12,000 percent more voting events!

As a part of  the planning process for setting up an online election, the election consultants at Votenet try to help organizations think through every possible scenario for voting to ensure all eligible voters can participate.

The University of Dayton’s recent student government election is a perfect example of why this research is so important. The school has more than 6,900 undergraduates, and they based voting rights on the number of credits. Upperclassmen with more than 60 credits could vote for senior class senator, but seniors returning for a fifth year of school were blocked from voting. Read the rest of this entry →

Guest Blogger Terrance Barkan, CAE, is the Chief Strategist and Business Architect for GLOBALSTRAT, applying more that 20 years of business and international not-for-profit management experience to crafting solutions for complex problems.

Even some of the most traditional, old school associations are embracing social media these days, and it is having an impact on how volunteers run and get elected to office.

Recently The International Real Estate Federation (FIABCI) launched a Member-to-Member online social media platform designed to connect its members. With more than 60 chapters and many thousands of members around the world, it was seen as critical to leverage technology to keep members in touch with one another between face-to-face meetings.

One of the first results from the implementation of the new tool was a spike in activity from members that traditionally had less of a profile in the organization, which functioned more on traditional personal networks. Read the rest of this entry →