The Celebration Residential Owners Association (CROA) serves a large community of approximately 4,300 homes, with over 10,000 residents in Celebration, Florida. Since 2011, CROA has utilized Simply Voting for their Board of Director elections and occasional special votes.
CROA had several requirements regarding their elections:
- A self-service online voting portal that would allow them to manage all their elections easily and efficiently;
- A user-friendly voting system that would make online voting accessible and convenient for all electors in order to increase participation and accessibility;
- A cost-effective solution that covered their efficiency and security requirements.
Simply Voting’ solution:
Simply Voting offers a secure, user friendly and cost-effective voting platform that allows election organizers to run self-managed elections using our easy-to-use election manager.
In addition to the standard features offered in all elections, Simply Voting offers other product features to fit more specific requirements:
- Manual vote entry
With the Manual Vote Entry tool, election administrators can convert a physical paper ballot into a digital record, thus allowing tabulating of paper ballots alongside online collected ballots.
Election administrators identify the voter associated with a paper ballot and then enter their choices into the Simply Voting system. The final results will note how many votes were manually input by administrators, and how many votes were marked as spoiled by administrators.
- Weighted voting
Weighted voting allows election organizers to assign each voter a vote weight that will be applied once their ballot is cast. The final results will take into account vote weight, and note how much vote weight was cast in total as well.
For example, an HOA could assign a different weight to their electors depending on the number of units they own.
- Candidate withdrawals
From time to time, election organizers may encounter the need to withdraw one or more candidates from the ballot. We offer the capability to mark those candidates as withdrawn on the ballot.
When a candidate is withdrawn from an active election, their name is struck through on the ballot, and the word WITHDRAWN is displayed in bold red type next to their name. Electors will still be able to vote for the withdrawn candidate if they wish to do so.
- Vote confirmation emails
We offer the ability to send a confirmation email once an elector had voted to confirm them that their vote was recorded.
The results:
Opting for a self-serve approach, the Celebration Residential Owners Association found the Simply Voting administrative portal user-friendly and efficient for managing elections, in addition to being cost-effective.
By introducing online voting, CROA aimed to enhance convenience to voters, and therefore increase overall voter turnout. Over the years, online voter turnout has steadily grown, from 9% in 2011 to 35% for the 2024 board elections, with participation reaching as high as 55% for special referendums of high interest.
Looking to run an election for your HOA?
If online voting is permitted in your state, feel free to reach out to us. We will be happy to provide a solution tailored to meet your requirements.
