This message is posed on behalf of Jennifer
McGill of AEJMC.
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Re: BTW re: electronic ballots |
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Thu, 09 Apr 2009 10:03:46 -0400 |
I
appreciate your message letting us know about your concerns with the electronic
balloting process. This is our second year of doing balloting this way, but we
did still send out 163 paper ballots as well (to people who did not have
emails, whose emails bounced back, or who expressly requested a paper ballot).
We received 33 of the paper ballots back. (Last year we mailed 311 paper
ballots and received 90 back.)
The AEJMC Board of Directors discussed electronic balloting for more than two
years before we developed a process that they felt addressed the major concerns
of making sure members knew what to do by both print and email, having a secure
process for one person-one vote, and that allowed members to still receive
paper ballots if their emails bounced back or they expressly requested one. It
was key that the process be fair and accessable.
I want to outline the balloting process as well as share the stats on the
voting response rate from the past five years. First the response rates: This
year's response rate was 23%, which was lower than normal, but still within the
range of the others. The 2008 rate (the first year of electronic balloting) was
27.3%, which was one of our highs; 2007 was 26.7%; 2006 was 24.9%, and
2005 was 25.9%.
The balloting process starts with the cover story in the March AEJMC
newsletter, which is snail mailed to every AEJMC member. The cover story
announces the VP candidates with photos, and lists the rest of the committee
candidates. It links members to full bios and platforms on the AEJMC website.
The newsletter story also outlines the electronic balloting process and alerts
members to contact us if they do not receive an email about their ballot by a
certain date.
We also send a email message to all eligible members the end of February that
tells them to expect an email by a certain date that will have their ballot
information. So we use both print and email to let members know about the
election itself. If any of the emails from this message bounce back, we
automatically remove them from the e-voting database and send them a paper
ballot. This year 72 emails bounced back and those people were sent a paper
ballot. (We already had 91 people who were receiving a paper ballot.)
The next stage is sending the email to each eligible voting with the link so
they can vote. We stress that they should vote right now. This year by the end
of the first day 377 people had already voted (which was one more than voted
the first day last year.) Several days before voting ends, we do a follow-up
email to eligible members and remind them of the deadline.
So during the election process, members receive one mailed announcement (the
newsletter) and three email messages. (Or if the first email bounces back,
those members received a second mailed message, which is the ballot itself.)
Please let me know if you have other questions. We do welcome your thoughts and
ideas on the process.
Best,
Jennifer
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Jennifer McGill
AEJMC Executive Director