91vert Posted April 12, 2016 Share Posted April 12, 2016 I was wondering if any thought has been made regarding the ability to vote by e-mail or e-voting ? I get my Bugle via E-Bugle only so I am to vote when I recieve the ballot in the mail. Last time it was 2 months late. With the usual low turn out for voting any way to make it easier to vote would I believe have a better turn out Cal. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
jscheib Posted April 12, 2016 Share Posted April 12, 2016 I would just say, that with so many on facebook and other social media, it would be hard to direct the actual vote, as it seems only a small number of members use this format, so I am not sure how many more voters we would get. John Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
JohnD1956 Posted April 12, 2016 Share Posted April 12, 2016 Cal, I do not know if that idea has come up in the past. The votes go to the club accountant who is responsible for the official count. So he would have to be involved in that solution. But do you have an app or program in mind for accomplishing this? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
91vert Posted April 13, 2016 Author Share Posted April 13, 2016 21 hours ago, JohnD1956 said: Cal, I do not know if that idea has come up in the past. The votes go to the club accountant who is responsible for the official count. So he would have to be involved in that solution. But do you have an app or program in mind for accomplishing this? John, you are talking to the wrong man about an app or program. That is way above my pay grade. All I know is that on a different chevy truck forum you can vote for a truck of the month and you can only vote one time. All I am saying is that it is not rocket science. The easier that it is too vote the more people will vote. If I recieve my ballot late again I will again not vote. I was not the only one that this happened to. Cal. 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
bhclark Posted April 18, 2016 Share Posted April 18, 2016 It has been discussed. I think we'll be closer once the Roster is electronic. Right now, the accountant counts the votes. If we did both ways, the votes would have to be individually logged to avoid duplicate votes. That would be time consuming, and thus costly. If we went fully electronic, I'm not sure the vote count would increase, but could change the demographic of WHO votes. It would be interesting to be able to chart the demographic that currently votes by mail to see what means we could utilize to increase the voting %, but we don't currently have that demographic information attached to our membership. Electronic Roster with self updates could increase that information as well. As it stands, a large percentage of our membership doesn't even have an email address listed and many don't have email or computer access at all. That has slowed our conversion and caused us to be cautious of moving too fast to more electronic means of communication, voting, roster, etc. The idea is valid and appreciated, but there are many moving parts that have to be taken into account in order to not jeopardize our relationship with ALL of our members. 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
lancemb Posted April 18, 2016 Share Posted April 18, 2016 (edited) 91vert is right. I recommend the following, which could be implemented easily: 1) Set up a survey online through a 3rd party site such as Surveymonkey.com. cost is free or negligible. 2) Tabulate mail votes in a spreadsheet. 3) Download online survey results. 4) Lookup online list vs. Mail list to ensure no double voting. A precedent rule would have to be set for any double counts, such as mail vote trumps e-vote. Done! Lance Basiorka Edited April 18, 2016 by lancemb Details (see edit history) 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
91vert Posted April 19, 2016 Author Share Posted April 19, 2016 Lets try a different method here. The voting ballot is on front of the mailing wrap. Does not help e-bugal members. The ballot could be placed some where on this site where members only could print out a copy so that they can vote. Cal. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
JohnD1956 Posted April 19, 2016 Share Posted April 19, 2016 Cal, this site gets some BCA traffic, but a small percentage. It may help to send the e mail accessible members a reminder. The E Bugle members are receiving a ballot mailed to their address of record. I suspect the main problem with lack of voting is that the voters do not know the candidates personally. It's like those proxy vote mailers one gets from some company you may have a small holding in, through a mutual fund. You don't know the candidates, and may have never heard of the company either. Chances are that proxy notice sits on the mail pile for a while before it's tossed in the trash. Better no vote than to make an error voting for something you don't know anything about. One main problem with Internet voting will be the possibility of voting more than once. Since the major unique identifier on the internet is the e mail address, and since anyone can have multiple e mails ( I currently have 4 e mail addresses for various things), if the voting rules are not set up right then someone may vote multiple times. There is already an expense to have the election results independently tabulated and certified. It would be a much harder job if suddenly there could be 4x the votes which only have to be nullified. 3 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Thriller Posted April 20, 2016 Share Posted April 20, 2016 Use of BCA membership number would be able to provide a unique identifier. I suspect other issues will will revolve around the cost and integrity of the vote. BCA coffers aren't unlimited to set something like this up. Hey, at least there is a vote and we don't have acclamation. That suggests healthy debate and members interested in the running of the club. 2 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
MCHinson Posted April 20, 2016 Share Posted April 20, 2016 While discussing the potential for electronic voting, I think I should mention the concept of security. I have always been surprised that the members only section of the BCA website uses such a poor level of security for member log in. Since BCA members have traditionally listed their membership number very publicly, the current BCA website log in method would easily allow any non-member or expired member to log in as another individual and have access to the electronic Bugle and other information in the Members only section of the website. If there is ever a move to go to electronic voting, it needs a much higher level of security. If anything is based on member number without an individual secret password (not the member's last name as currently used for the website log in) the vote would not be secure. It would be quite easy to use a roster or other publicly available information to commit fraud. Wouldn't an easier fix be to simply mail the paper ballots in a timely manner to those members who get the magazine's electronic version? 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
lancemb Posted April 20, 2016 Share Posted April 20, 2016 On Tuesday, April 19, 2016 at 10:06 AM, 91vert said: Lets try a different method here. The voting ballot is on front of the mailing wrap. Does not help e-bugal members. The ballot could be placed some where on this site where members only could print out a copy so that they can vote. Cal. I think putting the form online somewhere would be a logical addition and alternative to my online survey suggestion; it's just another means to get the ballot. I still think an online survey in addition to the mail in ballot is the way to go if we want to greatly increase voting. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Bill Stoneberg Posted April 20, 2016 Share Posted April 20, 2016 We have the ballot on the mailing cover to have your name on the ballot. This keeps people from printing multiple ballots and taking a roster and stuffing the ballot box. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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