New Feature: Assigning Multiple Votes per Ballot

Seeing as it’s almost the holiday season, we wanted to surprise all of you with a special gift – a new feature that will surely add an interesting dynamic to your elections!

Multiple Votes per Ballot

Multiple votes per ballot (aka Weighted Voting) is a way of allowing one person to have more influence on an election than another voter. We wanted to implement this feature as a way of tackling the condominium board community and homeowners associations. It is also extremely useful for proxy voting at board elections. We have gotten a lot of requests for this feature, so I’m pleased that we able to introduce it to everyone! In the past ElectionBuddy operated on a “One person, one vote” tallying system. With this new feature, organizations can assign multiple votes to a ballot, when elections are set in the First Past The Post, and Referendum method.

Who uses Weighted Voting

While weighted voting can be used for a variety of applications, it is prominently seen in elections done by homeowners associations and condominium boards – where multiple votes can be assigned to a ballot. For more information on how condominium boards across Canada operate their elections, I invite you to read our Condominium Board Blog Series. We have also looked at US Homeowners Associations and Condominium Boards to see how ElectionBuddy might be beneficial to them. For example, in a Condominium Board Election, John owns 5 units in a building totaling 18,000 sq. ft. and Amanda only owns 1 unit for 2000 sq. ft. The way votes are completed for this board is such that John would receive 18 votes and Amanda would receive 2 votes, on their respective ballots.  You will notice that most condominium bylaws state that number of votes someone receives is set by how many square feet they own.

How to Use it in ElectionBuddy

We realize most elections operate on “a one person, one vote” tallying system, and didn’t want to impact those who use it that way in the slightest. ElectionBuddy users love the simplicity of the software, so we wanted to keep it out of the hair of users who won’t be using it. Here’s how to use it:

To set up weighted voting:

• Go to the Voters page
• Select Weighted Voting; Ballot IDs will be automatically selected:
• Go to Voter Information
• Upload your voter list
• Enter a Ballot ID for each voter; learn more at Voter Options: Ballot IDs
• Enter each voter's weighting
• Each voter must receive a weighting:

We’d love to hear what you think about this new feature. We are all extremely excited about it and hope you are too! Reach out to us at support@electionbuddy.com.