Election Best Practices: 5 Ways To Improve Your Voting

It’s not too early to begin planning one of your organization’s most important events for 2011 – your election!

Here is a quick list of tips to help with your upcoming vote:

1. Timing of the ballot. The actual day you choose to email or mail your members may be significant. When sending an email, schedule the delivery for either a Tuesday or Wednesday. These days of the week generally have the best click-through rates, so your email ballot or reminder has a better chance of being viewed by your members. Additionally, take a look at the bounce rate for your email efforts. For organizations like associations and cooperatives, an acceptable bounce rate is around 6.2%. If your email campaigns have bounce rates that are significantly higher, it is time to look at your member database and update contact information. Doing a paper ballot via standard mail? Shoot for a delivery date on either a Tuesday or Wednesday too. Typically, these days are the lightest in volume for the post office meaning your ballot or materials will compete with fewer items. One last thing to keep in mind: the average organization’s election cycle only lasts 35-40 days, so it is critical that this time period is carefully planned and effectively utilized.

2. Promote your election. Communicate and advertise your election to your members in a variety of ways: website, postcards, emails, newsletters, social media sites and events. Spreading the word and creating awareness typically generates a “buzz” about the election and increases voter turnout. It is not uncommon to see voter response rates increase up to 10% after carefully investing in election promotion and planning.

3. Get a jump on nominations and consider ways to improve this process. Nominations are often the most dreaded part of the election process – but they don’t have to be! Online tools are now available to automate the entire nomination process. These tools can help alleviate the months that it usually takes to organize the candidates, qualify these individuals, and then nominate them for office. This is accomplished by providing an easy way for candidates to enter their information online and allowing nomination committees to track the process 24 hours a day, 7 days a week. Visit the Contact Us form or call 800-974-8099 and mention that you would like to take DirectNomination, our nomination tool, out for a test drive. Our election experts would be happy to help.

4. Set obtainable and realistic goals. No matter your situation, it is important to have goals for your election. Whether it’s achieving a certain response rate, moving your election from paper ballot to online voting, or ensuring your board members’ satisfaction, clear objectives and goals are important. From these goals, you can build your strategy for election success. If any part of the election process for your organization becomes daunting, give us a call at 800-974-8099. Survey & Ballot Systems (SBS) would be thrilled to consult, problem solve, or partner with your organization.

5. Learn from your election data. There are nuggets of gold to be found in your voting data! We’re not talking about looking at how one particular person voted, but rather taking a close look at who voted, when they voted, and if they voted by paper, web, or phone. Understanding age, gender, and further demographics of voters in your organization will give you a better idea of how to set up your election process and put together future awareness campaigns. Recognizing tendencies and what is important to members is the key.

For over 20 years SBS has been providing customers with the tools and resources to conduct highly successful elections. The world’s top associations, cooperatives, and organizations trust SBS to plan and manage their elections. SBS election services include traditional paper ballot elections, online voting, telephone voting, and hybrid voting systems. If your organization could benefit from conducting the highest quality election available, with guaranteed and certified results, make sure to visit [php] bloginfo(‘url’); [/php]/products-services/elections/ for more information.

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