After many elections and lots of effort, we have now reached nine million votes cast on ElectionBuddy!

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To celebrate this milestone, I will highlight nine features I personally love about ElectionBuddy:

1. The ability to update your voter’s contact information after your election has started. This feature is fantastic because it allows you to change an email address that might have been entered incorrectly to the proper email address. This feature helps increase voter turnout as more people can receive their invitation to vote!
2. You can duplicate an election. This feature helps speed up the election set up process when you need to create an election that is similar in setup as your previous one. For example, let’s say you need to re-do your board election for the new year, all you have to do is duplicate your election from the previous year and then revamp it with an updated information.
3. ElectionBuddy gives you the option to spoil your voter’s ballot! This feature is handy in cases where a member has left your organization while your election was running but they had already cast their vote. The spoil option allows you to remove the vote so that it is no longer counted towards your election results.
4. This feature is small but I think it is important. You can add your logo to the ballot, giving your election a personalized feeling.
5. Things can change and your timelines can shift. Because of this, ElectionBuddy allows you to change your election end time, helping to create a headache-free election experience.
6. Two words – voting groups. The perfect feature for your school elections where you want people to based on their grade level.
7. If a voter joins your organization after your election has started, you can use extra access keys to add them to your election!
8. You can send your voters their invitation to vote via text message. If you have your voters’ SMS phone numbers and know that they actively use their cell phones, you can use this feature.
9. Don’t have enough candidates to fill out your slate? No worries – you can enable write-ins using ElectionBuddy!

These are just some of the features that ElectionBuddy offers. If you have any questions regarding any of our features please do not hesitate to contact us at support@electionbuddy.com. Thank you for being a part of this milestone – we hope to continue to help you on your path to election excellence!

Over six million votes have now been cast in elections on ElectionBuddy. Election administrators and voters alike, you have been busy!

Six Million Little Changes

A Fresh New Look

So, to celebrate this milestone, we have given ElectionBuddy a new site design! 

When visiting ElectionBuddy.com, the first thing you will notice is less clutter. Previously, our old homepage felt a little…busy. Therefore, the new design maximizes white space and uses text blocks to give your eyes specific things to look at, as opposed to not being sure where to look.

Additionally, bright orange links and buttons make navigating the site a breeze!

Since we are always thinking about the mobile experience, the design also plays nicely with mobile users:

Once you log into ElectionBuddy, you can see that the site design carries through into the actual application, as well. Because we aimed to increase ease of use and readability, we have:

• Enlarged buttons and checkboxes;
• Created a new colour schema and matched colours that increase contrast (without being harsh on the eyes);
• Made drop-down menus easier to interact with; and,
• Increased the size of editable text fields.

A Mini Library of Election Information

In addition to modifying the design, we also expanded on the knowledge resources available on the site. These pages were designed to educate readers not only on ElectionBuddy, but also on the basics of running any election. So, anyone can benefit from this content.

Below are some links to some of the pages:

• A review of notice methods that you can use to contact your voters.
• An overview of online voting.
• A summary page of the different voting systems.

Also, there are individual pages that explain various ballot types. As well, these pages also have ideas as to how to build these types of ballots in ElectionBuddy:

• Executive officer elections
• Board of directors elections
• Contract ratifications
• Bylaw amendments
• Budget approvals
• Candidate acclamations
• Motion votes
• Member polls
• Awards
• Referendums
• Candidate member approvals
• Nominations

One Big Change

Although we wanted to make changes that we would enjoy, we also wanted to ensure that all of you would enjoy them as well! We know that this can be a big change for some people. So, if you have any questions or comments about the new site, please feel free to shoot us an email. We would love to hear from you!

Five million votes.

The team that make ElectionBuddy happen can’t even believe that we’ve reached that “Five million votes!!!” mark. We are small, but we are mighty!

But, we aren’t the only small but mighty ones. To celebrate reaching five million votes cast in our ElectionBuddy community, we want to share a special story from Ontario, Canada.

In a town five million meters away…

(Okay, more like 3.5 million meters away, but we’ve got a theme to carry on here!)

In the city of Toronto, Ontario, an organization exists to promote the usage of ranked ballots in their municipal elections. They are the Ranked Ballot Initiative of Toronto. But, why use a ranked ballot? Well, according to our friends at RaBIT, ranked ballots should be used because they:

• Eliminate vote splitting;
• Provide more choice for voters because they eliminate vote splitting;
• Discourage negative campaigning because a second-place ranking matters as much as a first-place ranking;
• Reduce strategic voting because you can indicate your feelings on all candidates; and
• Ensure majority support because you cannot win an election with a ranked ballot with 20% of the vote.

These are all great reasons to use a ranked ballot. So, to put ElectionBuddy’s ranked ballot to the test, RaBIT worked with a private K-12 school in Toronto. 

Students at WillowWood School got a chance to use ElectionBuddy to run their student council elections. How did the students like it? “The kids themselves said it was an easy, comfortable, uncomplicated way to run their elections…the kids felt their votes counted and that, no matter who won, that they still had a stake in the outcome.” When teachers would come around to see if the students needed assistance with voting, most of them had already voted. That’s amazing!

Thank you to the students at WillowWood School for putting ElectionBuddy to the test, and thank you to the team at RaBIT for your passion about voting and for all of the kind words about ElectionBuddy. As RaBIT says, “Ranked ballots? ‘There’s an app for that’”!

Five million thumbs up!

To learn more about the WillowWood School experience, please see RaBIT’s blog post on the project.

Check out this great video that RaBIT made! It includes interviews with the students and teachers — see for yourself how much WillowWood School liked ElectionBuddy!

Put ElectionBuddy’s ranked ballot to the test for yourself today!

We have done it: four million votes cast!

Can you believe it?! As an ElectionBuddy community, over four million votes have now been cast in over 22 000 elections! But, because of an all-new version of ElectionBuddy, more functionality than ever, and new features being released regularly, it is no surprise that our community has grown to this size. Indeed – as we continue to make ElectionBuddy better, we anticipate and look forward to celebrating more of these milestones with you all!

So, to celebrate the four million vote milestone, let’s take a look at a few of the amazing things you could have if you casually had about $4 000 000 laying around in that childhood piggybank:

• Here’s a list of what that kind of money will buy you in the supercar world (check out #2 – it will make your knees weak)
• You could have four of these homes in this look at what $1 000 000 will buy you in different cities across North America (looks like it’s time to move to Winnipeg…)

It’s pretty incredible that as of this morning, the ElectionBuddy community has now cast over 3 million online votes in 16,000+ elections using our simple and secure online voting software.

As in the past, when we reach ElectionBuddy milestones, we use the opportunity to share interesting stories we find on the internet.  So, for the 3 million online votes milestone….

• Four Years In, ‘Gangnam Style’ Still Receives Over 3 Million Plays A Day
• Sutherland Wal-Mart truck driver makes 3 million safe miles
• Inside a spectacular £3 million London mansion that hasn’t been lived in since 1895
• $3 million/kg: Indian-American firm to take human ashes to moon

It’s pretty incredible to think that as of this morning, the ElectionBuddy community has now cast over 2 million votes in 12,000 elections using our simple and secure online voting software.

People from across the globe have been using ElectionBuddy as a way to easily manage board elections, condo board bylaw changes, awards, committee changes, student council elections, chamber of commerce elections and so much more. The ability to cast a vote from anywhere at any time has increased voter turnout for many groups, and the automatic functionality has saved organizers countless hours (and whole a lot of stress).

We’d like to take a moment to thank the entire community for being so engaged, dedicated and enthusiastic about their organizations, and about what ElectionBuddy can do. Our team, who have watched ElectionBuddy grow from a mere 100 votes cast to 2 million in just a few short years, are so excited that our little engine-that-could is now the best-in-class solution used by people in more countries than we could list here. We love what we do and it shows in our software!

Thank you again for all of your support. Our goal of providing an affordable e-voting platform that is simple, secure and flexible has helped to transform an often convoluted process for so many.

We’d love to hear your story of how you used ElectionBuddy online voting software to simplify your election. Share it with us and we’ll share it in our blog and e-blasts!

As in the past, when we reach electionbuddy.com milestones, we use the opportunity to share interesting stories we find on the internet.  So, for the 1.5 million milestone….

• The 1.5 million balloon story
• Macdonalds sued for 1.5 million dollars because they gave only 1 napkin

It’s pretty incredible to think that as of this morning, the ElectionBuddy community has now cast over 1 million votes using our simple and secure online voting software.

People from across the globe have been using ElectionBuddy as a way to easily manage board elections, condo board bylaw changes, awards, committee changes, student council elections, chamber of commerce elections and so much more.

We’d love to hear your story of how you used ElectionBuddy online voting software to simplify your election. Share it with us and we’ll share it in our blog and e-blasts!

Ok… in keeping with our ElectionBuddy.com traditions, here are some facts we found when searching google for 750,000

• Burgundy is the hex color for 750,000
• A pizza is worth $750,000 in bitcoin
• $750,000 is the lifetime capital gains exemption in Canada (for all the tax accountants who are electionbuddy users)
• Albainia has 750,000 cold war bunkers
• And in keeping with technology…  The UK will need 750,000 workers by 2017

• 600,000 tourists will be hosted in Brazil for the 2014 World Cup
• the hex color of 600000 is a nice shade of burgundy 
• T-Mobile sells 600,000 iPhone 5’s each month

And of course, ElectionBuddy.com reached the 600,000 milestone.

Thanks to all our ElectionBuddy users!

500,000 ElectionBuddy Ballots and counting… and with it the top 5 500,000 fact list

• The hex colour is a Cherry Red… http://www.colorhexa.com/500000
• Bob McKenzie passed the 500,000 twitter follower mark
• Speleothems Reveal 500,000-Year History of Siberian Permafrost
• On the election front… big elections like the recent one in Hawaii have issues too
• And on the voting front…  in 1966, Serviceman were seen casting 500,000 ballots for the US president election…

Thanks to all the loyal users… next stop, 750,000 ballots!

Did you know that 400,000 is a hex color… OK, while it’s not something that you think of every day, it is comprised of 25.1% red, 0% green and 0% blue and for RGB fans its R:64, G:0, B:0. And while we do a lot with color (hint, it’s the basis for our next feature release), I share this because I was searching on Google for some interesting facts about the number 400,000 and the hex color was the first result.

As always, thanks to the associations, student groups, universities, colleges, boards, non profits and the rest of our loyal user base. And stay tuned for some interesting features, and if you have some feature ideas, don’t hesitate to share them with us…

Here’s to a half a million!

With our year end complete, I wanted to share some ElectionBuddy statistics – ok not sure if you will find them as interesting as I do (maybe it’s my accounting training rearing its ugly head), but here it goes anyways….

• Largest Election processed 11,000 voters
• 300,000 voter milestone passed
• New ElectionBuddy election administrators  last month –  just under 200
• Number of times last month I (Dave) said “Holy Doodle, great job team”: 43
• Number of times I said “Thanks” to our election user community – never enough

Thanks for helping us make ElectionBuddy #1 in google search rankings.  And I hope you have a GREAT election year!

You know it’s going to be a good day when you pass a milestone like this before even having coffee. ElectionBuddy.com has now hosted over 1000 elections, with well over 130,000 votes cast! What a treat to wake up to!

How did this happen? Well, a few reasons…

A shift to the online game

Over recent years, we’ve seen so much of our daily activities move online. Elections are no exception, and we take pride in become a leader in online election software. People enjoy working from their email, and voting from your inbox just makes sense.

Easy to use and customer feedback

You don’t need your business or household’s computer wiz to use ElectionBuddy. The setup process is plug in and play. And that’s pretty much thanks to all of our users! We’ve always welcomed feedback, and constantly take suggestions into consideration. Almost every new feature we add comes from your suggestions. It could be as simple as changing around some of the wording in the set up, or giving the organizer the option of a write-in candidate. Regardless of what the feedback is, we take it to our weekly meetings. We encourage you use our support form for any comments on ElectionBuddy and improvements you may have.

Security

We use a 256-bit encryption. This is the same security major banks rely on to keep your data safe in transit. Users enjoy the fact that there is a minimal chance of voting fraud, and information is not shared with third parties. We value confidentiality!

Support

Our technical support is fast and friendly… although you likely won’t need it! Like I said, ElectionBuddy is very straight forward to set up.

So thank you to everyone who’s hosted an election through our site. Once again, we invite everyone to write us a message on how we can further improve ElectionBuddy. Here’s to 1000 more!