Month: July 2014

Today we introduced two improvements for the logging voter activity in the Election Manager:

Searchable Activity Log

The activity log is an audit trail of all significant activity related to the ballot. You can now search the activity log by Elector ID, by IP address, or by the type of activity.

Fine-Grained Logging

We now keep track of voter activity events leading up the final ballot submission. The “ballot opened” event reflects the voter accessing the ballot to start voting. The “ballot filled” event reflects the voter proceeding to the confirmation page. If a voter’s session is interrupted or if the voter changes her mind before final submission, you may find several “ballot opened” and/or “ballot filled” events leading up the “online vote” event.

These two improvements enhance the auditability of your election and also empower you to better help your voters. For example, if a voter reaches out to the election organizer needing assistance, you can now see where in voting process this particular voter “got stuck” and what steps remain to resolve the voter’s difficulty.

With the addition of the searchable activity log and fine-grained logging, Simply Voting has made it easier than ever for election organizers to track and understand voter behavior. The ability to search by Elector ID, IP address, or activity type gives you greater control over the audit trail and allows for quicker identification of any issues that may arise. These tools not only increase transparency but also provide valuable insights into the voting process, ensuring that you can assist voters efficiently. Whether it’s troubleshooting voter difficulties or confirming the integrity of your election, these updates provide the detailed information needed to support both your voters and the election’s overall security.

Contact us for more information!

At Simply Voting we’ve designed our voting system with many safeguards to ensure that the election officer cannot undermine the election’s integrity when using our Election Manager interface to self-administer their elections. Now, you can change election dates and electors in your Election Manager.

Based on feedback from our customers and on our experience running thousands of elections, we’ve determined that a few restrictions were making things difficult for the election officer without providing much benefit.

Therefore we have made the following changes to the Election Manager, effective immediately:

Election Dates

Before, you could not precisely change the start and end of the election once the ballot had been finalized. You could only “start now” or “end now”.

Now, you can change the exact start of the election (until the election has started), and you can change the exact end of the election (until the election has ended). Such changes are recorded in the Activity Log.

Managing Electors

Before, you could not make any changes to the electors once the ballot had been finalized. You could only correct bounced email addresses.

Now, you can add individual electors, delete individual electors and edit individual electors  up until the election has ended. Such changes are recorded in the Activity Log. You cannot delete any elector that already voted, and you cannot change the vote weight or segment (if applicable) of any elector that already voted.

If you have any concerns or questions regarding these changes, please contact support to discuss.