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October 3rd, 2024 by David Simms

Categorized as: Election Tips

7 Don'ts for Starting an Election

I’ve seen this. A client’s election begins and they do some really proper things such as: Unfortunately, I’ve seen times when the beauty of these things almost gets lost in a clutter of aimless and horribly verbose text surrounding it. I’ll not name names or even copy and paste bad examples here (at least not […]

January 3rd, 2024 by David Simms

Categorized as: Election Tips

Optimize Candidate Photos

When including candidate photos on the ballot, photos should be sized to 100 pixels wide x 120 pixels tall. This guarantees the images will have small file sizes and load very fast on the ballot and appear nicely sized and positioned inside the candidate biography window without pushing the biography itself out of the way […]

December 6th, 2023 by David Simms

Categorized as: Election Tips

How to Provider Voter Support

Despite all that is done to ensure the voting experience is as simple as possible, there will inevitably be the occasional request for assistance from a voter. When a voter contacts you it is most preferable to them to receive resolution to their question right then and there without you having to in turn contact […]

September 7th, 2023 by David Simms

Categorized as: Election Tips

What's in a Candidate Name

During ballot setup, one of the things election administrators must do is provide the names of the candidates appearing on the ballot. In addition to providing a candidate’s name, occasionally an election administrator will also treat this as an opportunity to append a job title, professional designation, geographic location or any number of things that […]

March 1st, 2023 by David Simms

Categorized as: Election Tips, Product Development

User Accounts Explained

When you create a totally new organizational account through which to manage elections using the Skypunch online voting system, you become the account owner. However, there are other types of user accounts that may be associated with your organization and this article explains each so you understand the security benefits of using the right account type […]

December 7th, 2022 by David Simms

Categorized as: Election Tips

Referendum Best Practices

Skypunch supports voting on referendums. An example of this might be allowing voters to adopt or reject a change to a bylaw. These are handled nearly identical to voting on positions contested by candidates. So much so, in fact, that during election setup a referendum is treated as a position and the options for adopting […]

October 5th, 2022 by David Simms

Categorized as: Election Tips, Increase Voter Turnout, Product Development

Social Proof to Increase Voter Participation

New to social proof? For a full description, visit social proof on Wikipedia, but in a nutshell it may be defined as “…a psychological phenomenon where people assume the actions of others in an attempt to reflect correct behavior for a given situation.” It’s a concept that may be used to increase voter turnout, and a feature […]

September 7th, 2022 by David Simms

Categorized as: Election Tips, Product Development

Ranked Choice Voting

Skypunch supports Ranked Choice Voting. Among other names, this is sometimes referred to as Single Transferable Vote, preferential voting, or when being used to fill only a single vacancy, Instant Runoff. Frankly none of the alternative names are particularly descriptive in helping voters understand how it differs from plurality voting where the candidate with the most […]

July 6th, 2022 by David Simms

Categorized as: Election Tips, Product Development, Time Savers

Publish Elections Results Publicly

Elections results may be published publicly. The benefit—as opposed to a client retrieving the results from their account and then accouncing the results through some other means—is that when voters see the results published publicly on the Skypunch website, they understand that an independent, third-party specialist has been retained to conduct the election and is […]

June 1st, 2022 by David Simms

Categorized as: Election Tips, Increase Voter Turnout

Ignite Voter Turnout

“Enlighten us, but make it quick.” The motto of an Ignite event is a concept that translates well to introducing candidates to an electorate both online and off. If you’re new to an Ignite event, the concept is simple, a presenter goes through 20 slides in 5 minutes. That allows for 15 seconds per slide and the […]

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