How to create the right ballot paper for Professional Association Elections

Ballot Papers for Professional Associations

Ballot papers are one of the most important aspects of an election. As far as the voter is concerned, they constitute the entirety of the election. Voters are mostly unaware of the organisation and management challenges that will have gone into creating the ballot papers, nor with the counting process afterwards.

The ballots are the only part of the election that the voters will see and can help the voting process run smoothly, or even endanger the validity of the election. Read on for more information about ballot papers for professional associations. 

Physical Ballot Papers

Creating physical ballot papers is a deceptively complex task. You must ensure that all ballot papers are identical, especially if you are combining in-person elections with mail voting. Should your election come under scrutiny, ensuring that your ballot papers are in line with not only you bylaws but with widely accepted democratic practices will help your results remain valid. 

  • Decide how you would like your candidates to appear on your ballot paper. We recommend sorting your candidates alphabetically to ensure that you are not inadvertently causing any sort of bias.
  • With resolutions and changes to bylaws, make sure that you use neutral language that cannot influence your voters. 
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The Right Ballot Paper for the Right Election

Not all ballot papers are created Equal - having the right ballot paper for your election will ensure that your election will function the way that it is supposed to. There are numerous types of election, from majority voting to proportional representation and votes on resolutions. 

Professional Associations are extremely lucky as far as voting procedures go. There are three types of election that may occur:

These two voting procedures require different professional association ballot papers

Switch to Online Voting

Taking the plunge and moving to online voting is the simplest way of reducing the stresses and high costs involved with managing a paper election. There are four simple steps involved in creating an online election:

  1. Create ballot papers online within minutes
    • Simply upload a list of names and links to their bios
  2. Upload your electoral roll
    • Upload an excel document containing your electorates' E-Mail addresses and names - as simple as that. 
  3. Define the election period
    • How long is your election period? A few hours? A few weeks? 
  4. Click start. 

Alternatively, get in contact with one of our election experts and we will manage your election for you - from start to finish. 

Our system counts the results within minutes of the election closing, meaning that you no longer have to stay in late to get the results announced for early morning. Sleep in and simply download election results at the click of a button. If your association is still on the fence about pure online elections, we can combine our system with any traditional voting procedure.