HOWTO Run Board Elections

Getting Started

To run elections at AHA, you will need access to our newsletter service (currently MailChimp), AHA Elections Matrix channel, and an allhandsactive.org email account. Once you volunteer to take on the administrative tasks of running an election, you should be granted access to the MailChimp, and someone with an allhandsactive.org account should be in contact to help you make the ballot. If no one reaches out, you can request access by emailing board@allhandsactive.org or posting in the #general Matrix channel.

Note: Incumbent board members (i.e., board members who are up for re-election) and nominees are barred from assisting in the administrative operations of elections. Nominees, incumbent or otherwise, can only consent to their nomination and provide their bio. Active board members can help with elections, so be sure to ask an active board member. You may also opt to ask for help from active members who have run elections before.

Generating Member Vote Codes

Verify Members

Documentation coming soon!

Generate Member Vote Codes

Go to Random.org's String Generator and:

1. Change the number of strings to generate to the number of current members
2. Leave the string length set to 10
3. Leave the checkbox next to "Numeric digits (0-9)" selected
4. Click the checkbox next to "Lowercase letters (a-z)" selected - lowercase letters are used to avoid mistakes for members who opt to type in their code rather than copy and paste
5. Leave the radio button next to "Each string should be unique (like raffle tickets)"
6. Click "Get Strings"
7. Import the generated strings to MailChimp as a Custom Merge Tag

Importing Member Vote Codes

Create Custom Merge Tag

Log in to AHA's MailChimp and:

1. In the left-hand navigation pane, click "Audience Dashboard"
2. Click the "Manage Audience" dropdown
3. Select "Settings"
4. Select "Audience fields and *|MERGE|* tags"
5. Click "Add a Field"
6. Select the "Text" field type
7. Edit the field columns as follows:
   • In "Field label and type" column, enter Vote Code
   • Leave the checkbox in the "Required?" column deselected
   • Deselect the checkbox in the "Visible?" column
   • In the "Put this tag in your content:" column, enter VCODE
   • Leave the "Default merge tag value" column empty
8. Click "Save Changes"

Export Members CSV & Add Vote Code

While logged in to AHA's MailChimp:

1. In the left-hand navigation pane, click "Tags"
2. Click "View" next to the "Members" tag
3. Verify that the contacts listed in the Members tag table are up to date
4. Above the Members tag table, click "Export Segment" - the segment will export as a .zip archive containing a .csv file
5. Locate the .zip file in your file system (it is likely in your Downloads folder), right click, and choose "Extract"
6. Click into the extracted folder and open the .csv file in the spreadsheet software you use (e.g., Excel, LibreOffice Calc, etc.)
7. In the empty column titled "Vote Code" (most likely column D), paste the codes you generated in Step 2.2: Generate Member Vote Codes
8. Delete data in all columns except "Email Address," "First Name," "Last Name," and "Vote Code"
9. Save the file as a .csv file - the file must be saved as a .csv as MailChimp does not except other file extensions

Import Members CSV

While logged in to AHA's MailChimp:

1. In the left-hand navigation pane, click "Tags"
2. Click "View" next to the "Members" tag
3. Above the Members tag table, click "Add Contacts" and select "Import Contacts"
4. Select "Upload File" and click "Continue"
5. Click "Browse" and add the .csv file you edited, or drag and drop that .csv file from your file finder
6. Click "Continue to organize"
7. Click the checkbox next to "Update any existing contacts" - do not change any other option, you only want to add the vote code to existing Members contacts
8. Click "Continue to tag"
9. In the "Search for or create tags" dropdown, select the "Members" tag
10. Click "Continue to match"
11. Make sure that each column has the correct information (e.g., "Email Address" should display emails, "First Name" and "Last Name" should have names, "Vote Code" should have the codes you generated)
12. Click "Finalize Import"
13. Review that the import is impacting the correct number of members, and that the details of the import are all correct
14. Click "Complete Import"
15. After the import completes, you will see a table with all contacts and you can scroll through to verify that contacts with the "Members" tag now have a Vote Code and non-members do not

Create the Ballot

We use Google Forms to create our ballots. When you build the form, you will also connect the ballot to a new Google Sheet to track responses. To create the ballot, sign in to an allhandsactive.org email address:

1. Open Google Drive
2. Click the "+ New" button
3. Hover over the right-pointing arrow ( ▶ ) and select "From a Template"
4. Select the template titled "[SEASON YYYY] - All Hands Active Vote of Confidence"
5. Replace placeholder text indicated by square brackets ( [ ] ) with current information (remember to remove the brackets also)
   • Rename the form by replacing "[SEASON YYYY]" with either Fall or Spring and the current year (this will auto-update the form title as well)
   • Update the form description to replace "[Month YYYY]" with the current month and the current year and "[YYYY-MM-DD]" to the date that polls close
   • Update the Vote of Confidence question options from "[nth NOMINEE NAME]" to the nominees' names - add additional options as needed
6. Connect the form to a Google Sheet to collect information
   • Click the "Responses" tab at the top of the form
   • Ensure that "Accepting Responses" is toggled to the on position (it should be colorful, not gray)
   • Click on "Link to Sheets" and keep "Create New Sheet" selected (it will auto-name the sheet, but if you need to, you can click on the generated sheet name and edit it before clicking "Create")
   • Click "Create" to create the sheet that will track votes
7. Get notified of new responses - this will help you catch mistakenly submitted ballots and correct them prior to counting votes
   • On the "Responses" settings page, next to "Link to Sheets," click the three vertical dots
   • Click "Get email notifications for new responses" - you will now receive an email each time a submission comes in