Electronic Voting Form Creation

Discussion
1

This is a real question NOT homework! Also it’s not a Linux unique problem, answer could involve windows, Linux, mac, android users.

I am a member of a association with around 400 others. Every 2 years we hold a vote for new members of our committee to be selected from volunteers. We are never over run with offers and in previous years have struggled to fill all the rolls offered. President, secretary, Trésorier. Etc.

My roll is easy as I do all the computing stuff, plus sound and lighting for conferences shows etc, also the web site. None of the others really want to take this task on as it involves funny hours, and technical skills few have.

Like all groups we have in the past just a show of hands at the assembly general and votes are cast. But that excludes those not present, also if you vote against another member everyone knows who said yes or no.

This year I would like to offer confidentiality and remote voting by doing everything electronically (paper if all else fails or no access to technology).

My request would be in the form of

Name, brief details about them, then the vote part positive negative or no comment

So

Paul, technical superstar, YES, NO, ABSTENTION

Fred, former swimmer, YES NO ABSTENTION

etc.

To stop duplication or cheating member number rater than name at some place on the form. Also it’s one member one vote, many members of the same family may share one email.

This would be then submitted to our secretary and me to check. And count 10 for, 1 against 1 abstentions etc.

My choice would need to be easy for everyone to complete and available in easy format.

So excel (or libreoffice calc), or word (libreoffice writer) PDF forms or site Internet.

The vote would open 5 days before with a email to members and either a link or attachment. And close a few hours before the meeting to allow counting.

So my question to fellow community members is…..

What would you use ?

How would you set it up and encourage returns ?

Any shortfall you can see with my idea?

Thanks.

Btw, this is a volunteer role, no one gets paid, usually a thankless task open to criticism!

and to make it worse its in french where the rule is complain first.

Open to suggestions.

2

I think I would go for voting by email reply , rather than a form on a website. Email them a template, and ask them to return it filled in.

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3

You could trawl through the voting questions on Stack Exchange’s Software Recommendations resource to see if anything clicks…

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4

Restrict the process to one mode, probably email. If they share an email, they’ve already forfeited their privacy in the household. Too many modes will be a snafu.

5

In what format given they may have different tools to complete such as word libre office WPS etc

6

A .txt file. That is universal.

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7

@callpaul.eu You might take a look at LimeSurvey. I used it for similar tasks a few years ago. I had installed it on my web server.

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8

How about StrawPoll? It’s simple but effective and you get your results quickly. You simply mail all your recipients the poll and be done with it. In the email you could attach a note that all uncast votes will be considered abstentions.

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9

Strawpoll and limesurvey looked ideal but the Free option is limited to 50 members for free as we have close to 400 to pay would not sit well with our members sadly the like free the other is to pay for.

I can do it on our site for free but thought there may be other options I have not considered

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10

The community edition (CE) of LimeSurvey has no such limitations, but you have to find a host or install it yourself.

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11

We have a host for our site but uploading tends to be a pain as we are running wordpress on it and dont want to screw that up

Have put together a simple form

Just to give our president and idea and see if he wants it or not, dont want to spend hours on something he just says non !

I had thought multiple name down one side and they yes no ABSTENTION across the top to cut down on the list size.

At the mo, the form is not live, it does not mail anywhere, that only happens if he says yes do it.

I can spend hours creating things to be rejected having learned this in the past in our association.

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12

The main problem I see, is how to inhibit cheating.

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13

Always possible but with name and number can verify as only 3 of us know member details.

Guess that’s why not many countries go down this route. But in future think it will be more common.

Almost all our members use a on line form to join or renew so its nit totally alien and for those that dont want ballot papers at thevready at the meeting. Some are bound to relecture, but i then have a further 2 years to pass the problem on or find another solution. (If I get voted for this time around)

14

Haven’t the Swiss been voting electronically for years (decades even?)?

Maybe not to elect people - but I’m sure they do referenda voting electronically (and lots of stuff gets decided via refernda right?).

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15

Not that I’m aware of.

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16

I’d recommend creating a hash from e.g. member number and name or e-mail. Send this hash to the voter for use as identification.

$ echo "Alfred Bühler|abu@localhost" | shasum -a 256
735d675b2bd8c2c6fa575a159494cb63db1875ca2fe5b1f7f812e9c9ed94484b

Not perfect, but it makes cheating somewhat harder.

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17

With so few members dont think anyone will cheat also we dont get that many offers to join the inner band as it involves work, although we have at least 1 who wandered around important as they are on the council without actually contribution in name only

1 Like