Category: Company News

Happy Holidays 2019 everyone! Please note that our office will be closed from December 23, 2019 until January 3, 2020.

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. You can also use our help portal!

As we wrap up another fantastic year, we want to express our heartfelt gratitude to all our customers and partners for their continued trust and support. 2019 has been an incredible journey, and we’re excited to continue providing you with reliable and innovative election solutions in 2020. May your holidays be filled with joy, relaxation, and memorable moments with your loved ones. Thank you for choosing Simply Voting. We look forward to serving you in the year ahead!

During the holiday season, we also take a moment to reflect on the milestones we’ve achieved together. From helping organizations run secure and transparent elections to building lasting relationships with our clients, we’re proud of the impact we’ve made in 2019. Your feedback, collaboration, and trust have been invaluable in driving us forward, and we’re excited to embark on new projects and challenges with you in the upcoming year. Here’s to a successful and prosperous 2020 for all!

Wishing all our customers and partners a wonderful holiday season, and we’ll see you in the New Year!

 

In case you missed it, in April Simply Voting was in Boston at the insurance and risk management industry professionals conference. RIMS, the risk management society™ empowers risk professionals to make the world safer, more secure, and more sustainable. Through networking, professional development, certification, advocacy, and research, RIMS and its 80 chapters serves more than 200,000 risk practitioners and business leaders from over 75 countries. Founded in 1950, the Society publishes the award-winning Risk Management Magazine and produces  RISKWORLD@ the largest annual gathering of global risk professionals.

Simply Voting attended their annual convention to meet with some of these entities. How do online elections fit into risk management? Corporations and insurance captives conduct shareholder votes annually to vote in their board of directors. Some of them even collect proxies to facilitate their vote and meet quorum.

Online elections play a significant role in risk management for corporations and insurance captives during their annual shareholder voting process. Here’s how:

1. Ensuring Compliance
   Online voting platforms help organizations comply with governance requirements by securely managing shareholder votes. They ensure transparency and accuracy in board elections, reducing the risk of disputes or regulatory non-compliance.
2. Meeting Quorum Efficiently
   By facilitating proxy collection and remote participation, online elections help entities achieve quorum more easily. This minimizes the risk of meeting delays or cancellations that could disrupt decision-making processes.
3. Mitigating Security Risks
   Reliable online election systems like Simply Voting provide robust security measures, such as encrypted vote storage and voter authentication, reducing the risk of fraud or unauthorized access. This protects the integrity of the election process.
4. Reducing Operational Risks
   Online platforms streamline vote management, reducing human error associated with manual processes like paper ballot handling or tallying. Automated systems ensure accurate and efficient outcomes, minimizing potential operational disruptions.
5. Enhancing Stakeholder Confidence
   Transparent and secure online voting increases trust among shareholders, ensuring that the voting process is fair and unbiased. This helps organizations maintain their reputation and foster stronger stakeholder relationships.

By integrating online elections into their processes, corporations and insurance captives effectively manage risks related to governance, compliance, and operational efficiency.

Sound like something you do? Contact us to learn more about the electronic voting and proxy collection solutions we have and are developing for corporations and insurance captives like you.

Happy Holidays 2018 from all of us at Simply Voting! As the year comes to a close, we want to thank our customers and partners for making this another incredible year. It’s been our privilege to support your organizations with secure, transparent, and efficient online voting solutions, and we’re proud of the role we play in helping you engage with your members and stakeholders.

Please note that our office will be closed from December 24, 2018, until January 4, 2019. During this time, a skeleton staff will be available to support ongoing elections. If you require emergency assistance, simply fill out the support form on our website, select the “emergency” priority, and someone from our team will respond as quickly as possible. You can also access resources and guidance through our help portal.

As we celebrate the holiday season, we reflect on the milestones achieved throughout the year, made possible by your continued trust and collaboration. We’re excited about what lies ahead in 2019 and look forward to partnering with you on new elections and projects. From everyone at Simply Voting, we wish you a joyful and peaceful holiday season filled with warmth, laughter, and memorable moments.

Here’s to a successful and prosperous New Year for all!

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.

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.

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!

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!