Users Guide to the Voting Feature

The "Voting" feature was designed to facilitate online voting for non-controversial issues. An issue consists of a headline, a detailed description and an expiration date. When an issue is created the administrator has the option of selecting the possible votes. The defaults are:

• Yes
• No
• More discussion - This means that someone has questions or wishes to discuss the issue further. If anyone votes more discussion then the online vote should be suspended and handled in a regular meeting.
• Optional selections - up to 4 additional voting options.

Process Overview

A person with administrative rights creates an issue by using the "Administrative Interface". Once the issue has been created an e-mail should be sent to the people who have the opportunity to vote. This e-mail should provide any background that was not included with the issue and ask people to vote.

Voters go to the website, review the issue and vote. Voters may change their vote up until the expiration date. By reviewing the issue voters can see how others have voted. When an issue expires the votes are counted and assuming that no one has voted "More Discussion" then the issue is decided.

Components

There are two main components of the Voting feature. The first component is the voters interface which allows voters to view issues and vote. The second copmponent is the administrative interface which is used to add, change or delete issues.

• Voter Interface
• Administrative Interface

The voter interface is what people use to view or vote on issues. There are three pages that they can use:

Review Votes

This page will display all issues with their description, expiration date and the current votes.

 

View Issues

This page displays a compressed list of the issues. The user may then selectan issue and it will be expanded.

 

Vote for Issues

This page displays all un-expired issues and allows the user to vote one or more open issues.

The administrative interface may be used to add, change or delete issues. As you might guess, there are three pages that make up the interface:

Add Issue

Used to add a new issue. Th eonly thing tricky about this page is that the expiration date needs to be entered exactly the way it shows on the page.

 

Delete Issue

Surprisingly enough this page is used to delete one or more issues. It is probably best not to delete issues for at least a season, if not a year.

 

Update Issue

This page is used to update an issue. Sometimes more information or a clarification is required. This page can be used to modify the issue. It also has an option to delete all votes already cast.

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