| Many new customers need to know just what information they need to provide to host their online election with us...
Here is the "standard" email we send in response to what information you need to provide:
Hello and thanks for your interest in out Elexpert Online Voting System!
First, we will set up a free demo site for your school and I will email you with the URL to the free demo site. This Elexpert demo site will have your school's look and feel and it is a real Elexpert voting site. This site will become your actual online voting site when you choose to go with Elexpert for your next online election.
Most everyone starts out with the same questions: Where do I get started? What information do I need to provide? How soon can I hold an online election?
The answer to the first question is...you get started right here by emailing us or visiting our website and having your free demo site set up.
How soon can you hold an Elexpert online election? We like to have at least two weeks to get everything set up and that also gives you a chance to verify the system before your election starts but if you can get us the ballot and candidate information plus a voter list, we might be able to safely get your election set up, tested and accepting votes in about a week. Less than one week...yes, we have did it in less than one day but it is in your school's best interest to get started at least two weeks in advance.
Now for what information you need to provide... We need two basic sets of information to get your online election up and running. The first thing we need is the ballot and all the candidates for each ballot item/race. It is ok to change the list of candidates. That happens all the time but we need to get the basic ballot set up as soon as possible. Some schools send their ballots on an Excel sheet, others send theirs in a Word document and many just type the ballot in an email and send that. We always work with the format that is best for you and we never make you use "our format".
The second set of information required for an election is the list of voters. Our Elexpert system does not require you to send any FERPA restricted data (FERPA = Family Educational Right to Privacy Act and it restricts disclosure of any part of a student's academic record). In fact, when a school does submit FERPA restricted data, we will not accept or use that data. This protects all of us and it most importantly protects the privacy of your student voters. The minimum information required for a voter is a unique Voter ID and a Voter PIN or password that does not have to be unique but should be something the voter will easily know and others would not easily know or guess.
The best way to create the Voter ID is to use the left side fo the student's email address...up to but not including the "@" symbol. We can provide other tried and proven ideas fore creating Voter IDs so just drop us an email if you need more ideas for Voter ID creation.
The Voter PIN or Password does not have to be unique among all voters but it should be something the voter easily knows and that others can not easily know or guess. A common and successful technique for creating the Voter PIN is to concatenate the voters's first initial plus last initial plus the two digit month of birth plus the two digit day of birth plus the last few digits from their university ID number. You can use more or less.
Our Elexpert system includes a voter login option that only requires their initials, the birth month and day adn the last few digits of their university/college ID number. Using this option, you do not have a separate Voter ID and PIN, there is only this special Voter ID and the system has an optional log in screen that allows the voter to select these items with a mouse and enter the digits from their ID in a text box.
Elexpert normally authenticates your student voters by querying a database containing the voter data you have submitted. We call this "database authentication". If your school has some sort of centralized user authentication system such as Active Directory, LDAP or Yale CAS, you might not need to submit any voter data. Our Elexpert system can integrate with AD, LDAP and CAS plus we are willing to look at integrating wtih other authentication systems your school might have available and if your system is used in other schools, there is usually no additional cost for programming services.
In depth information on voter data:
In our opinion, if your school could support/use all of the listed authentication techniques, you should select in this order: Yale Central Authentication Service (UC Riverside uses this), Database, AD, LDAP. The reason we would select AD and LDAP last is simple...your voter's AD/LDAP id/password would need to pass through our system and though we do that for some schools and we never store that data during the authentication process, it is just not a great idea for the college/university or the student voters. Most schools that do not have Yale CAS decide to use our database authentication. To use our database voter authentication you send us a data table (excel, csv, fixed width, whatever works for you) with your voter data. That table/list must include a VoterID that is unique per voter and a Voter PIN that does not have to be unique per voter but should be something the voter knows but someone else could not easily guess. We work with each school for ideas on creating the Voter PIN.
The best data to use for a Voter ID is the left side of the voter's email address but if your school does not provide an email account to every voter we can provide other ideas to build the Voter ID. For example, most schools decide to create a unique voter ID by simply concatenating the voter's initials with the month/day of birth (never the full date) plus the last few characters of the Student ID number. If you build the VoterID using this technique then you do not need to provide a separate Voter PIN since the concatenated value is both unique and secret. If you can use the left side of the voter's email address then a separate Voter PIN is required. In that case, the PIN just needs to be something the voter knows and others would not easily know or guess. Some schools use the left side of the email address as the Voter ID and a concatenated PIN built from this or other information related to each student voter.
If every voter gets the same ballot then all you need for the voter is a Voter ID and Voter PIN. If your ballot is divided up by college, major, class level, residence area or most any other criteria then we also need that information for every voter. For example, if some or all of your ballot items/races are divide by class level and others are divided by college then you would need to provide a code for class level and college for each voter.
The data below shows how you might present ballot and voter data for an election in a school where ballots are divided by major and residence area. Senators are elected according to their major and Representatives are selected according to their residence hall/area.
You might want to print this out to see how this works. In this case, the school has email addresses on all student voters so they elected to use the left side of the email address as the VoterID. For the VoterPIN, they concatenated the student voter's first initial, the last initial, the two digit month of birth, the two digit year of birth plus the last four digits of the student ID.
Voter ID smith23 (Diana Smith) has a birth date of 07/1980 and the last four digits of her student id is 2234 so her VoterPIN = DS07802234. Diana is in the college of Arts and Sciences (coded AS) and she lives in Greene Hall (coded GR). When Diana's ballot is generated by the Elexpert system, she can vote for SGA President, Vice President, Secretary and Treasurer and she can select only one candidate for each of these ballot items. Diana's ballot will also allow her to select up to 4 Arts and Sciences Senators and up to 6 Greene Hall Representatives.
Voter ID loms38 (Van Lomsdale) has a birth date of 09/1982 and the last four digits of his student id is 3838 so his VoterPIN = VL09823838. Van is in the College of Business (coded BU) and he lives in Racine Apartments (code RA). Van's dynamically generated ballot will look different than Diana's ballot since he will have the same SGA Executives to select from but Van will be able to select up to 3 Business Senators and up to 3 Racine Representatives.
This sample ballot does not include any referendum type items but they could be added. A referendum type item usually has a yes/no type selection but the available selections could be more than yes/no...for example, a referendum item could include yes, no, not sure.
| Here is a spreadsheet with all the details for our sample/demo election data...the election you can test from the link at the top of our website. |
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Situation: ballots are divided by major and residence area. Senators are selected by majorand Representatives are selected by Residence Area which could be a dorm, zip code, etc.
Codes used in this example:
Ballot/Referendum: B, R
Major: * (all students can vote), AS, EN, NU, BU, SW
Residence: * (all students can vote), RA, GR, BH, SH
(we need to know how many categories you have along with the list of codes) |
|
| Ballot Title |
Ballot or Referendum |
Major |
Residence |
| SGA President |
B |
* |
* |
| SGA Vice President |
B |
* |
* |
| SGA Secretary |
B |
* |
* |
| SGA Treasurer |
B |
* |
* |
| Arts and Sciences Senator |
B |
AS |
* |
| Engineering Senator |
B |
EN |
* |
| Nursing Senator |
B |
NU |
* |
| Business Senator |
B |
BU |
* |
| Social Work Senator |
B |
SW |
* |
| Racine Apts Representative |
B |
* |
RA |
| Greene Hall Representative |
B |
* |
GR |
| Burton Apts Representative |
B |
* |
BH |
| Seaside Hall Representative |
B |
* |
SH |
| You can also include one or more referendum type issues coded as type R |
| Student voter registration referendum |
R |
* |
* |
| Preferred start date for spring break |
R |
* |
* |
|
