In our first article, we looked at the five most important aspects of election planning.

In this instalment, we look at the options available to you for running your next election, if you are keen to avoid a paper-based campaign.

The global pandemic has helped us all to realise just how much we can do remotely. That being said, actual physical face-to-face interactions do still have their place. But do they have a place in your trustee elections?

You can opt for either email or mobile elections or a combination of both. So, as long as you have email addresses and/or mobile numbers for your members (ideally both), you can run a completely remote election.

Here’s how it works.

Email-based election:

Members receive email invitations to nominate and to vote, which direct them to a secure online election platform. They register and receive an OTP via email once their identity has been verified, usually through ID number and Fund number.

Mobile-based election:

Members receive SMS invitations to nominate and to vote, which direct them to the secure online election platform. They register and receive an OTP via SMS once their identity has been verified, usually through ID number and Fund number.

And it’s as simple as that! You can also run hybrid elections, where you use either the member’s mobile number or the email address, depending on availability of data.

Electronic elections will make it so much easier for you and increases participation by a large margin. Look out for the third and final article in this series, where we provide a brief case study of an electronic election in action.

ENDS