Section Election 2014
As we have since 2008, we held our election with the services of
Vote-Now (Vote_Now.com). We again included photos of the candidates
with the biographies and statements which accompanied the ballot. We
used the special "election roster" available from the national ACS
offices.
Voters receive, by e-mail (or postcard, for those without an e-mail
address), a login and a unique password, which will only work once,
to prevent multiple ballots from a given voter. Voting may be done
from any computer with internet access—home, work, or even one in an
internet cafe or a public library.
The Vote-Now "Silver" election service package we have ordered each
year includes electronic reminders to vote, and a postcard mailing
to those without e-mail addresses or whose e-mails bounce (usually
because the member has failed to update his or her records with the
national office). Included on the postcard were directions for
obtaining a paper ballot if the member desired, so no one was
disenfranchised (one of ACS's strict requirements for an
e-election). In 2014, no one asked for a paper ballot.
Voter participation was very similar to what it is every year—about
10% of the electorate. The total number of ballots received this
year, 268, was slightly larger than it was in 2013. The 268 ballots
represented 9.5% of the electorate, and it is nearly 10 times the
number received in 2007 (the last year when we ran the election
ourselves and used paper ballots).
A regularly updated graphical summary of
ballots received (final version shown at left) was available to me
during balloting. Ballots arrived in spurts which immediately
followed the initial announcement and the subsequent three reminders
sent out by Vote-Now. (The graph shape is reminiscent of a titration
curve for a tetrabasic weak acid!) The final vote tallies were
withheld during voting, of course, but they were made available
immediately at 11:59 p.m., at the end of the last day of voting,
which was November 23. This allowed us to schedule balloting to end
very shortly before the December 1 deadline for submission of
results, and still get them in on time.
The cost of the election to us was somewhat lower than the costs we
saw in the past when paper ballots were sent out and mailed back to
us by the members. Electronic voting also saves our members the
admittedly small cost, and, more importantly, the trouble, of
mailing ballots back to us.
Vote-Now provides a space on its ballots for voter comments, and we
received several favorable ones about the ease of voting. There were
also thank-you messages to those of us who volunteer to serve on the
Executive Committee.
The Executive Committee thought the whole thing was a complete
success, as it has since we first used Vote-Now. We plan to continue
to use Vote-Now for the foreseeable future.
Karl Marhenke, Secretary
Santa Clara Valley Section
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