In the past, board members had to travel to meetings in person to cast their votes. With the advent of new technologies such as video conferencing and online voting platforms board members can vote from home. The process is significantly faster and results in higher efficiency and more efficient decision-making for the organization.
When you are setting up remote voting for your board, there are a number of important factors to consider. You must first determine the method of voting. Most organizations have a nomination procedure before the election. Candidates can either volunteer to run, or be able to get in by gaining signatures, or be recommended by other members. A well-organized nomination process can drive early enthusiasm and attract the most qualified candidates, which can help to ensure that your organization has the best possible representation in its leadership.
Email voting has a number of issues, including the fact that the results aren’t in any way tamper-proof and can’t be recorded in real time. Additionally, when the board director responds to an email ballot using a different answer format than the rest of their peers It can be difficult to discern which responses are valid. The voting via email can also be a problem because it’s not anonymous. This can be an issue when voting on sensitive and confidential issues.
While certain states and bylaws don’t allow voting via email, the majority of nonprofit boards are able to legally vote outside of meetings as long as all directors can listen to each one another and respond in real-time and also if they have a unanimous written consent that is and signed by each director.