What to Look for in an Online Voting Provider for Board of Directors Election

Board of Directors Election

Board of Directors Election

Online voting provides plenty of advantages that ensure a seamless and efficient election process for both small and big businesses. With the right voting system, your organisation can enjoy a more accessible, fair, transparent (and if required) anonymous voting experience, ensuring that your governance needs are correctly fulfilled.

Here are some features to look for when selecting an online voting system to run important processes such as your board of director elections:

1. Candidate nomination features

Your online voting service provider should have a nomination feature for a smoother and more efficient candidate selection process for board members. Organisation members can simply nominate their choice of candidate through an online form with options for uploading relevant information, such as the nominees’ work profiles, to determine their eligibility more easily.

2. Full assistance and service throughout the process

Your chosen online election system should provide a straightforward voting experience and support to ensure increased voter turnout. There should be a returning officer in charge of helping you set up and manage the voting process, as well as dedicated support and assistance for whenever issues or irregularities arise. With help from the voting system provider, it will be much easier to oversee the election progress and get the results in real time.

A voting system that can handle your organisation needs, from the nomination process to the final tabulation and results announcement, will allow for a better, more convenient experience for individual members and the organisation as a whole. Looking for an online voting service provider that has successfully worked with organisations in a wide range of industries is a great first step in ensuring that you get the performance quality that you need.

3. Accommodates common voting methods for elections

The ballot software you choose for your elections should also be able to support a voting method that is compliant and inline with the company’s constitution requirements.

Plurality Voting vs. Majority Voting

The plurality voting system is the most basic voting system there is. In the plurality system, a candidate wins simply by garnering more votes than the other candidates.

The majority voting system, meanwhile, requires more to determine the outcome of the election. The winning candidate must have garnered more than 50% of the vote. This majority criterion, however, is sometimes not satisfied especially if there are more than two candidates vying for the win.

Preferential Voting

In preferential voting, voters rank the candidates in order of their preference. This is an ideal election method in cases where multiple winners are expected. This system proves to be a more accurate indicator of which candidates the voters actually trust and how much trust there is.

In this voting system, the weakest candidate is eliminated if the first-preference votes fail to achieve the majority. That candidate’s votes are then redistributed to the other candidates based on the second preference on the ballot. This elimination and redistribution process is repeated until the absolute majority has been secured by one candidate.

For the ballot in a preferential voting system to be counted as valid, it should meet the following criteria:

Cumulative Voting

In the cumulative voting system, voters are given a specific number of votes that they can distribute to the candidates however they see fit. Like the preferential voting system, this gives a fairly accurate measure of candidate preference amongst voters.

Cumulative voting can either be complete cumulative or limited cumulative. Complete cumulative voting allows the voters to cast all their votes for a single candidate. Limited cumulative voting, on the other hand, places a limit on how many votes they can give a single candidate.

For instance, voters are given a total of 5 votes to cast. In a complete cumulative voting system, all these 5 votes can be assigned to just one candidate, though the voters can still choose to give some of the votes to other candidates. However, in a limited cumulative voting system, there are specific instructions that limit the number of votes that can be given to one candidate. For example, only 3 of the 5 votes can be assigned to a single candidate, with the remaining 2 given to others.

To calculate the results for a cumulative voting system, the online voting platform counts the total number of votes the candidates have amassed. The candidate with the most number of votes is declared the winner. In multi-winner elections, the candidate with the highest percentage of the votes wins the first seat, the second highest gets the second seat, and so on until all vacancies are filled. In this way the cumulative voting system is ideal for encouraging a more diverse elected body, as minority voters are given more chances of having their choices represented.

4. Automatic auditing and results tracking

Exhaustive online voting management should include access to tabulation and tracking features that allow for viewing of the results in real time. There should be no error-prone manual tracking as authorised bodies can instead monitor vote status and results live on an online platform. There should also be constant, regular updates as the voting goes on, including information on the total number of votes cast, percent voted, vote tallies and tabularised results.

Options for additional analyses of results should also be provided, such as for when there are voting irregularities. However, voter anonymity should be kept.

5. Security

Security is a top priority in any election process. An online voting system should be able to provide the utmost security and protection to ensure fair and impartial results. Each voter should be allowed to cast their vote only once. All election methods should have access to two-factor authentication; this electronic verification method provides an extra layer of security and can be applied via email and SMS.

Voters should also be protected under the General Data Protection Regulation and the Company’s Data Protection policies, and the ballots should remain a secret and not associated with any organisation member. Any information collated during the election should also remain safe and would not be, in any case, shared with third-party entities.

In conclusion:

With customisable ballots, an online voting system can offer a flexible way to meet the organisation’s needs. The ballot service provider should have options that include:

With the right online voting system provider, your organisation can conduct a fair and impartial electoral voting process.

To learn more about seamless voting services that help maintain ballot secrecy and ensure election efficiency, send your queries at info@verovoting.com.au or contact us.

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