www.invote.scytl.com

Building your casefor Online Voting Key considerations

for associations

Member engagement and participation are two of the main challenges for member-based organizations, cooperatives and associations when execut-ing elections. Online Voting is often seen as a way to increase voter engage-ment, but implementing a new technology is often a challenge for most or-ganizations. In this eBook you will find some key considerations to help you build your case for adopting an online voting solution.

How connected are members to your organization?

Does your organization often struggle with getting members to vote in your elections? How can you change that? Continue reading to learn how to plan and manage voting needs to increase member engagement while keeping in mind the importance of member-centric elections that reflect your organiza-tion’s values.

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What should you considerbefore building your casefor Online Voting?Organizing elections for member-based organiza-tions can be time-consuming and complicated, but technology can tackle these challenges and ensure that your organization is up-to-date with the most ef-ficient election solutions.

The first step to take before adopting online voting is to assess your current situation in order to maximize your resources. Then, you can identify the electoral needs that require improvement and allocate the budget for related costs.

Step 1

EvaluationStep 2

Assessment of needs

Step 3

Allocating budget

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OnlineVoting

Considerations

Thorough voter database

Prior elections review

Participation numbersAnalysis

Needsassessment

Budget

By-laws compliance

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Step 1Evaluate the electoralsituation of your organization

By-laws complianceYour organization’s by-laws may need to be amended to allow the use of new technologies like online voting.

Thorough voter databaseHow accurate is your voter database? If your organization is planning to implement online voting, make sure that you maintain an accurate voter database with valid email ad-dresses and mailing information. The quality of your member data will be essential to send voter credentials and information exclusively to eligible voters.

Prior elections reviewCheck what went well during your previous elections and determine the challenges and difficulties you encountered.

Participation numbers analysisBe aware of past and present voter participation levels. Analyze participation trends and establish reasonable goals for future elections.

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Step 2Assess yourimprovement needs

The next step is to identify the areas that need improve-ment. In order to enhance the current scenario of your or-ganization's elections, it is crucial that you determine and list the "gaps" between the current conditions of your elec-tion processes and the desired conditions that your mem-bers need for the benefit of the whole organization.

Some common challenges an online voting channel may help you overcome include:

High costs for running more recurrent elections and not consulting members more often.

Slow and cumbersome member identification, voting process and results publication.

By-laws not up-to-date with new technologies.

Security and election results integrity not proven.

Members living abroad.

Low members’ convenience and accessibility in elections.

Little member engagement.

Low participation in elections.

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Step 3Allocate the budget fortechnology investment

With the outcomes obtained from the previous needs as-sessment, you will have a clear list of necessary election enhancements that can be realized with online voting. But paving the way for online voting involves budget alloca-tion and planning.

When evaluating the budget, it will be necessary to assess both functional and security requirements.

What is the available funding thatyour organization would be willing to invest?

Obtaining a majority agreement or internal approval for the related expenditures will be required by your organi-zation and the accounting department. So, you should be prepared in advanced to justify investing in electoral technology like online voting. The following pages highlight key consideration to help you make this justification.

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Consider online voting security requirements In order to prevent both external and internal attackers during the online voting process, basic security tech-nology should, at the very least, preserve voter privacy, guarantee election integrity and inhibit coercion.

Security best practices include vote secrecy, voter anonymity, election integrity and auditability.

Vote secrecyVotes should be protected by en-crypting and digitally signing voting options on the voting terminal instead of on servers.

Voter anonymityTo preserve voter’s privacy, the de-cryption process should implement cryptographic mechanisms that pre-vent the correlation between de-crypted and encrypted information.

Election integrityVoters should be able to verify that the encrypted vote is cast as intended and observers or independent audi-tors should be able to check that votes are counted as cast.

AuditabilityAudit processes should be independ-ent of the software, so the verification does not depend on software audits but on irrefutable mathematical proofs.

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How can your organization benefit by using online voting?A good elevator pitch to convince your members of the advantages online voting can have for your organization should contain the following key points:

Online voting helps improve members’ participation

Online voting makes voting more convenient

Online voting is secure and provides efficiency

Online voting is innovative and ecofriendly

Invote is Scytl’s online voting solution for membership or-ganizations that is leading the modernization of elections around the globe. It provides end-to-end encryption and verifiable online voting to private organizations , ensuring accessibility, voter privacy, vote anonymity, election in-tegrity and transparency throughout the entire election process.

Continue reading for more detailsregarding Invote’s benefits!

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Introducing technologyto improve participationNowadays we use technology and internet in all aspects of our lives. So why not for voting as well?

Adding new voting technology like Invote to reach mem-bers where they are and in ways that are convenient to them, sends the message that the voting process and member participation are priorities in your organization.

By offering the online voting channel to promote your election, the greater your response rate is likely to be!

Leveraging innovative and leading edge online voting technology like Invote will provide your organization with a secure voting channel that will help increase member par-ticipation in your next elections, allowing your members to vote easily online from anywhere and from the Inter-net-connected device of their choice.

Don't forget to appeal to younger members who grew up using digital technology! With online voting, you are giving them quick and convenient voting methods to cast their ballots.

Invote isso intuitive

and easy to use

that any generation will love it!

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Expedite the voter’s authentication processTo authenticate your eligible voters, your association’s members can easily receive the URL voting page and their voting credentials (login and password) by email, letter or mobile number using a One-Time-Link to securely obtain their voting credentials and access the voting portal. Invote also allows Single Sign-On, making voter authenti-cation easy by accessing the online voting portal from your association’s website.

Give members the option to vote onlineThe ability to vote anywhere and at any time is a conve-nient and welcome benefit to members that are clamor-ing for the option to cast their ballots easily using a laptop or mobile device. Go where your members are! Go online!

Provide a secure spaceYour association’s website is a secure and familiar place for members. From there you can guide your members to vote online, redirecting them to the voting portal where they can vote with speed and convenience, eliminating barriers for participating in elections.

Membersatisfaction: Making votingmore convenientfor members Elections are a great opportu-nity to boost member satisfac-tion and make members feel valued by demonstrating that their membership and opinion is important. Your association needs members to vote in elections in order to evolve and allow them to shape the future of your organization. For achieving this, you need to keep members satisfied with a convenient voting process.

But how ?

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Gaining efficiency with online votingWith Invote you can improve election effi-ciency. It is fast, secure and easy-to-use. It

reduces staffing time, eliminates paper-related costs and allows an efficient results publication, that is more accu-rate and timely.

With online voting, your association’s members will benefit from greater security, transparency, accountability and convenience.

SecureInvote safeguards the integrity of your election re-sults with the utmost security based on end-to-end encryption. It also provides strong authentication mechanisms, and, after casting the vote online, the voter gets a receipt for individual vote verification.

Easy to manage Invote is easy to manage and its design and seam-less navigation make it very easy to set-up for any online voting election. This will make your elections effortless, and never a burden for your association.

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Reduce ballot printing and postage

Carbon footprint reduction, burn less CO2, decreasing greenhouse gases

Eliminate the need for travel to vote and material delivery

Decrease waste of tons of wood and water

Gain a green image among your members, establishing environmental sustainability goals

Invote: Innovative and ecofriendlyEvery year tons of paper is used by organizations all over the world for voting materials: candidate programs and biographies, election notifications and traditional paper ballots. This results in an unintended waste for a demo-cratic process.

For instance, in Spain, more than 900 Million ballots are printed in a national election, equivalent to 1600 tons of paper or 22500 trees!

If your organization is looking to support greener options, then moving your elections online can help you minimize your impact on the environment.

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Invote: a proven solution for online votingSeveral organizations are adopting Invote to help improve their democratic processes and provide their members with the chance to cast their votes from anywhere.

Either as a standalone channel or as an additional and complementary channel to paper and postal voting, associations are leveraging the benefits that online voting provides to their members and management committee.

“For the first time, Codigi members were able to vote securely thanks to the use of innovative technology. Scytl successfully implemented online voting for our leadership elections. Online voting was our only voting channel and provided greater flexibility and conve-nience to our members. We are very satisfied with this new experience and will undoubtedly leverage the benefits of online voting in future elections.”

Alicia Rey Miguel, CodigiGirona Nurses

Association Chairman

www.invote.scytl.com

Thank youNeed more information on how to take the next steps for online elections?

Contact us.We’re here to helpcontactus@scytl.com