SurveyMonkey for Voting?
 

When we elected our new slate of chapter officers, we used Google Drive to take nominations and then for the vote itself. It worked well and except for a glitch, we found that it functioned as we hoped.

We're thinking of switching to surveymonkey for the major issue chapter votes (some of the girls didn't like Google) and we're wondering if any other sorority or fraternities on the chapter level use it for voting and how it works for them and whether they find that it suits their needs. Our local Beta chapters don't do online voting, but we figure that it might suit our needs to switch to that for our chapter at this time.

Thanks

Is your group online only? If not, why would you ever vote online for anything?

This was going to be my question, but then I thought maybe I was behind the times or something, and a lot of chapters are now doing this..

No, although we use Facebook and email pretty extensively to disseminate information and communicate with each other.

To answer your question:
Without getting into ritual and such: Some people were easily swayed by others during chapter meetings in regards to voting. As a result of our Test-driving online chapter votes with our officer elections really seemed to have nipped that in the bud. So, we're interested in expanding it.

I can see how this would be useful for the reasons you said, but my concern with anonymous online voting is 1) that it's possible to vote multiple times--I don't think Survey Monkey or Google have a control for this. If you end up with more votes than members, you have to do a revote as you wouldn't know which ones to remove, and that would be annoying. You could also end up with a tech glitch that accidentally double-votes. 2) you have no guarantee that the person who filled out the survey is actually the member. Maybe their boyfriend checked their email and thought it would be funny, or maybe the "swaying" that happened in meeting is so extensive that one sister could convince another to let her vote for her/tell the sister how to vote. See where I'm going with this?

Great that it's confidential and no one has to be embarrassed about how they voted or feel pressured to vote a certain way...but maybe better to vote in person and if your voting rules allow it, have someone impartial there to supervise the person counting? I know different sororities have controls on voting where say, the president counts (and doesn't have a vote) but an alum, advisor, or senior might "supervise" to ensure they don't change the votes.

Do the members-only sections of the various website systems have voting? ChapterCore, GIN, Celect, etc? If they don't, they should.

It's your chapter...

But that's kind of the point of meetings--allowing members to debate and attempt to persuade others when making major decisions. Debate serves to inform both sides and makes sure the arguments are sharpened.

If it works for you, good.

This is what I was going to say. I used to work for a Market Research company and SurveyMonkey was notorious for having junk responses.

I'd consider having the election administrator provide a random code to each voting member and include one question with an open-ended response to allow that person to paste their code in place. When you pull the data file, you can cross reference the codes and names to ensure that people are only voting once.

If intimidation issues are a factor, why not do a secret ballot at the meeting and count the votes? I agree with others that meetings are for the purpose to debate and discuss chapter business, which elections would fall under.

My BSP chapter has 27 members. The only voting we do online is by email and for selecting new members. If a member does not want her vote to go out to the entire chapter, she can submit her vote privately to the VP/Membership Chair.

ThetaPrincess, KnightShadow, SigmaGirl:
Thank you for your advice. It will be very useful!

Sen:
I'd never heard of what you speak of and did a little searching. It's a good idea, and I'll share it with my sisters. Goodness knows that it might come in handy for the way in which we are evolving.

Many groups are migrating to Select-a-Sis, which is comparable with ICS and other recruitment software. The chapter I advise isn't using it this year but others in our province are. We may make the shift if they have positive experiences this year.

I am sorry but LMAO at the name of that program.

Those kinds of programs are not a good fit for Beta Sigma Phi.

Ditto. I checked out "Select-A-Sis" and it wouldn't be suited for our chapter.

My chapter has used Survey Monkey for a few types of votes. Usually for petty stuff like availability or interest in a philanthropy or something. It was used once for an emergency Presidency vote when the position became vacant in the middle of the Summer.