CSS: Elections for Your Professional Society/Association

Elections

Does your professional society/association have an upcoming officers election or a vote on bylaws changes? Are you interested in online voting, paper balloting, or perhaps both? CSS combines its database expertise with state-of-the-art optical scanning and web-based technologies to provide a full range of election processing services to our customers. CSS is committed to the security, integrity, and accuracy of your election. Here are some ways that we ensure this:

We use a personalized a web site (i.e., YourAssociation.SocietyElection.com) and a separate election database for each election.
Our election website uses SSL (Secure Sockets Layer), the standard security technology for establishing an encrypted link between a web server and a browser, to ensure that all data passed between the web server and voting members’ browsers remains private and integral.
Automatic turn on and turn off at the appointed start and stop days/times, ensuring strict compliance with your organization's by-laws.
Credentials to access the election website are determined by you. Some examples include member number and last name or last name and a unique control code generated specifically for the election.
Our on-line election databases track both paper and electronic returns to ensure that each member can only vote once and that only the first ballot from a member is accepted, whether it was submitted on-line or via paper ballot.

Case Studies

A small society wanted to implement web-based voting in the hopes that a convenient system would encourage more members to vote. We quickly set up a customized on-line ballot for them, with hyperlinks to each candidate's photo and statement. The society sent an e-mail blast to each member that included a link to the election website and his/her unique password for logging into the system. More than 25% of the membership voted—double the participation from the prior election. The total cost for the election was less than $2,000.

Another society holds a complex annual election. Student members may only vote for their senate reps, while professional members may also vote for national officers and regional governors and senators. Write-in votes are permitted for all offices. CSS's on-line balloting system ensures that each member sees the appropriate candidate slate based on member grade, region, etc. All members receive an election letter that includes on-line voting instructions and a toll-free number to request a paper ballot. The society has realized substantial savings vs. paper balloting.

For more than 25 years, CSS has conducted the annual election of officers (and voting on by-laws amendments) for a large international professional society. Members have the choice of voting on-line or via paper ballot. CSS designs, prints, and mails all materials to members; processes all returns; validates the ballots; and tabulates the results. CSS uses its proprietary TallyMan™ software to validate each ballot and to tally the results.