Each election now has a checklist associated with it intended to:
- provide first-time users with the confidence of knowing they’re doing everything right and will have a smooth election.
- make sure repeat users aren’t overlooking any of the basics.
- encourage all clients to follow some best practices for ensuring high delivery of emails and voter participation.
Completing the checklist is not mandatory and has no impact on the election whatsoever. It’s just an aid to make sure the most important steps in managing an election don’t get overlooked.
This does not replace the instruction manual
In case that heading wasn’t clear enough, this does not replace the instruction manual. In fact, one of the steps on the checklist is to make sure you’ve downloaded an up-to-date copy of the instruction manual. While the checklist and the top half of the manual’s table of contents do look very similar, the two are meant to work together. For example, the checklist contains a line item for making sure you’ve tested an election adequately. The instruction manual describes how to test an election adequately. It appears in the checklist just to ensure you’ve actually followed instructions and not neglected to perform that very important step.
Equally important is recalibrating before the election start date to remove all traces of testing. A simple thing to do, but neglect to do it, and bad things happen.
Conclusion
Election administration is typically an annual rather than daily chore for most clients meaning even repeat users quite often have a perspective very similar to a first-time user. Hopefully this new tool will serve everyone well as just one more manner of foolproofing the system and making election management a stress-free experience.
