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Author: Brian Lack

Easier Question and Option Reordering

Posted on by Brian Lack

We are pleased to announce an enhancement within the Election Manager for managing question and option reordering on your ballot. You can now save time by using the reordering feature which employs a drag and drop interface.

This update saves time and reduces the complexity of adjusting your ballot layout. Whether you’re managing a simple election or a more complex one, this tool ensures flexibility and efficiency in creating a well-structured ballot.

Key Benefits:

  • Drag-and-Drop Simplicity: Rearrange questions and options in seconds by clicking and dragging them into the desired order.
  • Improved Workflow Efficiency: Quickly adjust the layout without navigating multiple menus or manual entry.
  • Enhanced Accuracy: Visualize the final ballot format as you reorder, minimizing errors.

For example, imagine managing the placement of questions on your election ballot: simply drag the questions to their new positions, and your updates are instantly reflected.

This enhancement is part of our ongoing commitment to provide intuitive tools that make the election management process seamless.

Below is an example of managing the placement of questions on your election ballot.

Below is an example of managing the fixed order for options for a given question.

This new enhancement can be found detailed in our extensive Help Portal, so give it a go in your next election!

Contact us if you need more information!

SOC 2 Certification

Posted on by Brian Lack

Simply Voting is now SOC 2 Type I certified. Governed by the American Institute of CPAs (AICPA), SOC 2 Certification was established in order to provide independent evaluation and confidence about an organization’s controls related to security, confidentiality, processing integrity, availability, and privacy.  A Type 1 report provides a description of the organization’s system as a whole, in addition to detailed testing of the design of the organization’s internal controls, all at one specific point in time.

What the SOC 2 Type I Certification Process Entailed

To achieve this milestone, Simply Voting partnered with A-LIGN, an independent auditing firm renowned for its expertise in compliance assessments. The audit involved:

  • Comprehensive interviews with our team,
  • Thorough examination of 198 pieces of evidence, and
  • Rigorous review of our company’s administration, online voting system, and underlying server infrastructure.

The resulting audit report confirmed that Simply Voting meets the SOC 2 Trust Services Principles for Common Criteria/Security, Availability, and Confidentiality. This demonstrates our commitment to providing reliable and secure voting solutions to our clients.

How SOC 2 Differs from SSAE 16

The SOC 2 audit is more extensive and stringent than the SSAE 16 (Statement on Standards for Attestation Engagements No. 16), which we previously completed. While SSAE 16 focused on financial controls, SOC 2 dives deeper into system operations and user data protection, reflecting a more comprehensive evaluation of our technology and practices.

Why This Matters for Our Clients

Achieving SOC 2 Type I certification is a testament to Simply Voting’s dedication to delivering secure and dependable internet voting solutions. We understand that our clients rely on us to safeguard their election processes and data, and this certification provides independent assurance that our systems are designed to meet their expectations.

This milestone reinforces our ongoing commitment to transparency, accountability, and trustworthiness, core values that define Simply Voting’s mission to deliver secure, fair, and accessible voting solutions for organizations worldwide.

For more information about our commitment to security or how our SOC 2 certification benefits your organization, feel free to contact us or visit our website.

Enhancements to Kiosk Voting

Posted on by Brian Lack

We are pleased to announce an enhancement to our existing Kiosk Voting feature.

Kiosk voting, for those who are unfamiliar with this type of voting, is in-person online voting where voters line up in queues typically and vote from communal devices — such as at an Annual General Meeting, or perhaps at your organization’s headquarters or branch offices, or some other designated in-person voting location. Kiosk voting often occurs alongside standard remote online voting, but it can also occur in place of any remote online voting too.

Inside of your Election Manager account, at the bottom of the Settings page, you will find a revamped Kiosk Voting Website section. Like before, you can still manage the “success text” for all kiosks.

Now instead of having a specific kiosk voting URL, to activate and launch a kiosk there is a new Activate Kiosk button. This enhancement may seem very minor at first-glance, but we’ve drastically increased the security of your kiosks through allowing total control of what devices are (and thus are not) configured for kiosk voting by election administrators.


As part of our feature enhancement, we’ve also developed and published a new Kiosk Voting Guide, available on the Help page, to better guide customers through setup and maintenance of voting kiosks. Moreover, if you have the Multiple Administrators feature activated on your account, we have also added a new permission to control access to “kiosk activation” for your users.

If you have never thought about incorporating any live in-person voting into your election management, don’t hesitate to get in touch with us so we can help you evaluate whether incorporating kiosk voting into your electoral event is a worthwhile endeavor.

GDPR and Privacy Policy Compliance

Posted on by Brian Lack

At Simply Voting, we’ve taken the opportunity to review GDPR compliance as an opportunity to also evaluate our Privacy Policy and Terms of Service. We want to ensure that everyone’s expectations and responsibilities are clearly defined.

Since Simply Voting’s inception, we have been committed to data security and privacy as we believe that both are critical subjects in today’s world. As you have likely seen over the last few months, many companies and organizations have been working to update their Privacy Policies and Terms of Service. It’s important to demonstrate their commitment to these subjects as well as to demonstrate their adherence to recently enacted regulations like the European Union’s General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR).

GDPR compliance
We are committed to complying with the GDPR and partnering with other businesses that share our commitment to privacy. We will continue to make changes to our policies and practices to protect your privacy and ensure ongoing compliance with the GDPR.

Privacy Policy update
Our Privacy Policy has been updated with a section to explain Simply Voting’s processing of data and other details in line with GDPR. Furthermore, our Privacy Policy has been updated to better differentiate between:

  • the company website and voting system
  • as well as between company website visitors, customers, and voters.

Terms of Service update
With respect to the GDPR, we have updated our Terms of Service to incorporate a Data Processing Addendum (“DPA”). EU Customers who use our services do not need to execute a separate DPA with Simply Voting.

We have also updated our Terms of Service to balance a few issues in favour of the customer, and added new sections to elaborate on:

  • Our procedure for reporting system failures and security breaches;
  • Our security responsibilities;
  • Our confidentiality responsibilities;
  • Customer security responsibilities; and
  • Customer confidentiality responsibilities.

In summary, our commitment to security and privacy remains strong. Whether you are prospective customer, an existing customer, or a voter; Simply Voting is dedicated to fully protecting your data and personal information.

Customers with offline or customized agreements
Please email info@simplyvoting.com in order to receive and review a new Memorandum of Agreement (MoA). This document includes the updated Privacy Policy and Terms of Service.

Moving to a New Office!

Posted on by Brian Lack

We are very excited to announce that Simply Voting has finished relocating our headquarters to a new office space with extra room to grow.

Effective immediately, our new address is:

Simply Voting Inc.
5160 Decarie Boulevard, Suite 502
Montreal, QC, H3X 2H9
Canada

Please take a moment now to update your database to reflect our new mailing address. Our main phone number and staff phone numbers will remain the same. Mail sent to the old address will be forwarded to our new address for a limited time.

While our new location is actually just across the street from our old location, it represents a major milestone in Simply Voting’s history. Importantly, our new office features enhanced security, privacy, and fire prevention. It represents our commitment to advancing safe and reliable internet voting technology.

We wouldn’t be where we are today without your continued trust. We look forward to supporting and strengthening digital democracy from our new office space!

This move wouldn’t have been possible without the continued trust and support of our customers. You’ve been an integral part of our journey, and we’re excited to continue building the future of digital democracy from our new office.

As we settle into this new chapter, our focus remains on creating secure, fair, and accessible voting experiences for organizations worldwide.

Thank you for being part of this exciting moment in Simply Voting’s story, we can’t wait to share what’s next!

Warnings for Undervotes

Posted on by Brian Lack

We just launched a “warning for undervotes” feature. One of Simply Voting’s core guiding principles revolves around simplicity and ease of use from the voter’s perspective. Our aim is to always ensure that our interface and how information is presented to voters is streamlined and valuable.

To this end, Simply Voting has launched a small improvement to our voter interface which will help ensure that voters execute their vote to the allowed fullest extent. When a voter interacts with a question that allows multiple optional selections, if the voter selects less than the pre-configured maximum number of options, a special note, a warning for undervotes, will appear next to the appropriate question when the voter reaches the Confirmation page.

For example, in the screenshot above (taken from our demo at demo.simplyvoting.com in case you want to see it in action), the Board of Directors question allows for voters to select up to 3 candidates. This sample voter only selected 2, and a new “note” has been added to bring this to the voter’s attention. The voter can do what they wish with this information!

This feature is particularly valuable in elections where voters may inadvertently misunderstand the number of selections allowed or forget to make their full range of choices. By gently prompting voters to review any undervotes, we aim to reduce accidental omissions and empower voters to make more informed decisions. Importantly, this warning is non-intrusive, voters are not required to make additional selections if they intentionally choose to cast fewer votes. This strikes a balance between guiding voters and respecting their autonomy.

Contact us if you need more information!

Dropping support for insecure browsers

Posted on by Brian Lack

As of today we are requiring voters and election organizers to connect to Simply Voting using TLS 1.2. The TLS protocol is used by browsers to encrypt communication between the visitor and the website. Its use is indicated by a green padlock in the browser window confirming that the connection is secure. TLS 1.2 is the modern version that supports the latest cryptographic ciphers, and is much more secure than TLS versions 1.0 and 1.1 which have been proven vulnerable to hacking.

By requiring TLS 1.2, older browsers that do not support this version will not be able to access the voting website or Election Manager. Modern TLS is supported by Firefox 28+, Chrome 33+, Opera 19+, Safari 7+, iOS Safari 5.1+, Android Browser 51+ and Internet Explorer 11.

Users stuck on older operating systems such as Windows XP or Mac OS X Mountain Lion may still access Simply Voting by using an alternative browser such as Chrome or Firefox. Users of Windows 7 that for whatever reason are prevented from updating Internet Explorer or installing an alternative browser can manually enable TLS 1.2 on Internet Explorer 8, 9 or 10 by checking it off in the Advanced tab in Internet Options.

After reviewing our logs we’ve determined that on average 0.2% of voters are using insecure browsers. This number will decrease over time as computers are updated, replaced, or have alternative browsers installed. Many large websites such as PayPal have already made this step, and there’s an approaching deadline of June 30, 2018 for websites to require a minimum of TLS 1.1 in order to remain PCI compliant (a security standard which Simply Voting adheres to) so many more will follow. While Simply Voting strives to make the voting system work with all browsers, we also place great importance on security. The time has come to drop support for insecure browsers, to make a safer voting system.

2017 Holiday Schedule

Posted on by Brian Lack

2017 Holiday Schedule: Simply Voting will be closed for the holidays from December 25, 2017 until January 5, 2018.

Skeleton staff will be available to support ongoing elections. If you require emergency support during this time please fill out the support form on our website, set the priority to “emergency”, and someone will follow up with you shortly.

We wish all of our customers a joyful holiday season and a democratic 2018!

New Turnout by Country Report

Posted on by Brian Lack

Simply Voting has a new feature for organizations who are interested in gaining a better idea about where in the world electors cast their votes – a Turnout by Country report!

How to Create a Turnout by Country Report? *

Glad you asked. It’s simple.

1) Log in to your Simply Voting account to open the Election Manager.
2) At the bottom of the initial page, you will see your Elections as hyperlinks. Click on the Election for which you’d like to generate the report.
3) Hover over the header highlighted in yellow and select Turnout Report from the drop-down menu.
4) Click on Download Turnout by Country CSV to easily review what countries Electors voted from.

The Turnout by Country report provides organizations with valuable insights into voter engagement on a global scale. By analyzing this data, administrators can better understand voting patterns, identify trends in participation across different regions, and tailor future outreach efforts to maximize voter involvement. This feature is especially useful for international organizations or elections with a geographically diverse electorate, helping to paint a clearer picture of global participation in the democratic process.

*For Fully Managed Elections, let your Project Manager know that you’d like a copy of these neat statistics.

Contact us if you need more information!

Simply Voting and StockTrack are Now Integrated

Posted on by Brian Lack

Simply Voting and StockTrack are now integrated for the introduction of online shareholder proxy voting. A streamlined internet voting solution, users can now purchase a secure, customized election from Simply Voting through their existing shareholder accounting StockTrack software. Benefits include automatic tabulation, detailed reports, email and mail compatibility, and cost-efficiency.

With this integration, users can now purchase a secure and customized election directly through their existing StockTrack software, simplifying the process of managing shareholder votes. This innovative solution not only enhances the voting experience but also ensures accuracy and transparency, making it easier for organizations to engage with their shareholders effectively.

The benefits of this integration are significant. Automatic tabulation ensures quick and precise vote counting, eliminating manual errors and saving valuable time. Detailed reports provide clear insights into voting results, helping organizations maintain transparency and build trust with their shareholders. The solution is compatible with both email and mail, offering flexibility in reaching shareholders across various channels. Additionally, this cost-effective approach reduces the expenses typically associated with traditional voting methods.

This partnership underscores Simply Voting’s commitment to innovation and providing reliable, accessible voting solutions for all types of organizations. By integrating with StockTrack, we are empowering businesses to modernize their shareholder voting processes while maintaining the highest standards of security and integrity.

For more details about this exciting collaboration, be sure to read the official press release. Together, Simply Voting and StockTrack are making it easier than ever to conduct efficient, secure, and transparent shareholder proxy voting.

Read the press release.