Board ballot creation and distribution

Setting up the electronic ballot requires a number of different steps. The following accordion panels explain how to do each of the required steps. It is recommended that you complete the steps in the order shown. You will repeate the steps  for each ballot nominee.

Electronic voting is initiated by emailing the Google Forms ballot link (URL) to those members who have an active email address in the database. The following material explains how to update the email template that is used to send out the ballot announcement.

1. Update ballot email notice template
   
   1. Log onto Wild Apricot and go to "Admin view" If you don't see a gray menu bar on the left side of the screen click on the gray "house" button at the left side of the horizontal gray menu.
   2. Click on "Communication" and then on "Email templates" in the gray menu bar.
   3. Click on "Board Ballot No Pictures" template and then on "Edit template."
   4. Update the following:
      1. the ballot year
      2. the five candidate names
      3. the ballot return date, and
      4. the name of the Nominating Committee chair, which will be the Immediate Past President.
      5. there are two links, one to the paper ballot and one electronic to the Google ballot.
         1. the paper ballot should not need updating and is:
              http://asura.wildapricot.org/resources/Ballots/BoardBallot.pdf

         2. the electronic ballot will need to be updated once the Google Forms ballot has been created and published

             

   5. If this is all you need to do, click on "Save" in the upper right side of the gray menu bar.
   6. You can update the template right up to the time it needs to be sent.

Electronic voting uses a Google Form to collect ballots. This form needs to be updated each year with the new candidates and the new Form URL. The following material is divided into three major parts:  

1. Preparing the candidates' bio/picture image,
2. Updating the Google Form, and
3. Determining the Form's URL.

Preparing a candidate's bio/picture image

Each candidate has their own bio/picture image and so this process is repeated for each candidate.

1. Open the paper ballot you created for the paper ballot process.
2. Copy one row of the headshot / bio from the table on the second page of the ballot to your clip board.
3. Open a blank page in Word and paste the copied row into the document.
4. Edit your one row two column table as follows:
   1. format the bio text to be Arial 11 with line spacing of 1.25
   2. size the picture to be a bit smaller than the cell.
   3. format the table to have a single line border.
   4. if the bio contains red highlighting for unrecognized words, assuming the words are correctly spelled, tell Word to ignore. You want to have a nice black and white image.
5. The easiest way to create the needed bio/picture image is to use screen capture software to take a snippet of the table and save it as a .jpg or .png file. Microsoft Windows 10/11 has a screen capture software package called “Snipping Tool” built in which works just fine to create the graphic file. Note:  you will want to hide any formatting symbols, e.g., end of paragraph before making the image. You can either turn them off temporarily or use Print Preview to snip from.
6. Save the created bio/picture to your computer for later use.

Creating the Google ballot

The ballot is a Google Form located on ASURA's Google Workspace. While you could create a new  form each year, the easier and recommended way is to duplicate the ASURA Board Election Ballot Template and then update the duplicated copy to create the new ballot.

Note: If you are not familiar with Google Forms it is a free, web-based application offered by Google that allows users to create online forms, surveys, quizzes, and questionnaires. ASURA is using it to create a survey, aka, the new Board member ballot,

1. Log onto Google.com using the ASURA account login credentials.  If you have logged in previously you can skip the rest of this item otherwise
   1. contact the chair of the Equipment Management committee under Operations and request the ASURA Google ID and password. You can get the chair's email address by logging into Wild Apricot and clicking on the Directory menu item.
2. Click on the hamburger (9 dots) in the upper right corner and scroll down until you find Forms. Click on Forms. You should now see a page of old Forms, mostly seminar evaluation Forms. Find the previous year's ballot and open it.
3. Click on the 3 dot hamburger in the upper right just to the right of the "Send" button and select "Make a copy" and then click on the blue "Make a copy" button. Change the Form title (upper left side) to have the correct new year.
4. Remove the old candidates. Each candidate is a multiple choice question. At the bottom of each question is a garbage can. Click on the can to remove the question.
5. If you need to or want to change the graphic at the top of the ballot
   1. Click on the palette icon in the horizontal menu at the top of the page to open the themes menu.
   2. Under Header, you'll see it shows there's an image uploaded.
   3. Click on the "x" to delete it
   4. Upload your new image and it will insert it as the header image
6. You can edit the voting instructions to reflect the new ballot due date. Feel free to modify the instructions.
7. To add a candidate
   1. To add a candidate click on the "+" (add a question) button and select Multiple choice
   2. Insert the candidate's name for the question.
   3. Click on the image icon located between the candidate's name and the type of question pull-down menu box. Do not use the image icon in the vertical menue. In the pop-up window click on browse and go to the candidate's image you created earlier and click on Open. If all goes as planned you will now see the headshot/bio image just below the candidates name.
   4. Add "Yes" for the first option, "No" for the second option, and "Abstain" for the third option.
   5. At the bottom of the question window click on "Required"
8. Repeat step 6 until all the candidates have been added.

Determining the Form's URL

You will need the Form's URL when you send the ballot notice e-mail (see "Distribute ballots" accordion below). To see the URL:

1. Click on the "Publish" button in the upper right corner.
2. Click on the Publish button in the lower right corner.
3. Check the box next to "Shorten URL" to get a shorter URL to use in the notice.
4. Copy and save the URL.

1. Log onto the ASURA website
2. Update the Volunteer Bios with the photos and write-ups for the new candidates (see "Add Edit Volunteer Bios" for information on how to do this)