In our January release, you’ll learn about new features and enhancements that improve the communication process, manage voting, and build trust in your voting outcomes. In these updates, you’ll find new ways to:
- Present the results of your vote or election to stakeholders professionally and clearly with the Ballot Summary Report.
- Quickly send different types of election communications from pre-ballot announcements to ballot invites.
- Close and unseal your organization’s ballots with confidence.
Keep reading to learn more!
New Features
Increase transparency with the New Ballot Summary Report
We’re excited to introduce the new Ballot Summary Report, which gives you a complete, “board-ready” record of your vote or election. This document replaces manual tracking and spreadsheets by automatically gathering your results, settings, and audit logs into one professional report. The Ballot Summary Report is also automatically customized with your organization’s branding, making it ready to present to your stakeholders.
What’s inside the report:
- Ballot Settings – A clear record of your settings, including whether the vote was secret, how quorum was calculated, and your specific voting rules (such as one-vote per unit or percentage of ownership).
- Results at a glance – See high-level data such as participation rates and how many eligible voters took part.
- Visual charts – Clear, easy-to-read charts for every question on your ballot. It’s perfect for sharing the outcome with your community without revealing who voted for what.
- Detailed tables – Show the exact vote count and percentage for each option in your ballot questions.
- Audit Log History – Feel complete peace of mind with a time-stamped history of who unsealed the results, and when they were viewed, ensuring accountability.
Whether you need to show how quorum was met or provide a historical record for annual meetings, the Ballot Summary Report gives you everything you need to close your election with total confidence.
Faster & more focused voting communications
Managing your voting or election communications has just become a lot simpler. We’ve organized how you send messages to your members by creating separate, dedicated spaces for Ballot Invites and Ballot Announcements. Here’s what this new update means for you:
- No confusion – By separating ballot invites and general election update announcements, you can quickly find the tools you need without scrolling through unrelated options.
- A more streamlined workflow – Whether you’re sending a new ballot invite or a post-election communication, this new feature helps you get your message out in fewer clicks.
- Same tools, better experience – While the layout is cleaner and more organized, the messaging features work exactly as they did before, so there’s no new learning curve.
Easily resend ballot invites to individual voters
Election administrators can now send or resend a ballot invitation or message directly to an individual from the Occupants page. This means if a voter cannot find their email or if you have a late addition to your voter list, you can send a fresh invite in seconds, without needing to message the entire voting population.
Enhancements:
An easier and more secure way to close an election
We’ve updated the election closing process to provide you with greater clarity and control. By updating our terminology and adding new safeguards, we’re making it easier to manage the final stages of your vote with confidence. How we’ve enhanced this process:
- Clear terminology – We’ve renamed “Archived” ballots to “Closed” ballots, which better reflects that voting has ended.
- Enhanced security – To prevent mistakenly closing a vote, we’ve added a manual verification step. You will now be asked to quickly acknowledge the action before officially closing a ballot.
- Transparency for secret and non-secret ballots – We’ve added helpful content that explains exactly what happens when votes are unsealed.
Improved communications
- Optimized email subject lines – We’ve adjusted how your emails appear in a member’s inbox to ensure they get noticed. By moving the “Community Name” to the end of the subject line, the most important information, such as “Ballot Invite” or “Election Reminder,” is front and center. This makes it easier for your members to identify the purpose of your email in an already flooded inbox.
- Postal mailing made easy – When you download a PDF letter for physical mailing, we now include helpful tips on the best envelope type to use, so your printed ballots fit perfectly and look professional.
Improved security & control
- Prevent accidental deletions – To delete a ballot form, you will now be prompted to type the word “DELETE” to confirm. This added layer of security ensures that your hard work is never lost by mistake.
- Audit Files are now more prominently displayed – We’ve moved the PDF Audit files from the reports drop-down to the top of the Results area, making it faster for you to access and download official records.
- Manage ballot statuses more easily – On the ballot listing page, we’ve replaced the “Active” toggle with a more flexible status dropdown. You can now easily update the status to Draft, Active, and End Voting/Close in one convenient place.
User Interface Improvements
- Voter Preview – In the ballot creator area, “Preview” is now called “Voter Preview”. This makes it clear that you are seeing exactly what your voters will see before your ballot goes live.
- Report Downloads – In the Results area, we’ve renamed the export button to “Download” to make it clear how to save your data.
- Cleaner Workspace – We’ve moved the “Delete” Ballot button to the bottom of the settings area. This change declutters your main workspace and helps to prevent any accidental clicks.
- Better Design for Buttons – We’ve improved the look of the Delete, Duplicate, Unseal, and Close buttons to make the interface easier to navigate.
Customer support
- Interactive learning – We’ve added our dedicated support email, new interactive tutorials, and updated our help articles to guide you through the platform step-by-step.
Innovating to make voting easy, secure, and fair
At Ballot Bliss, we’re always rolling out new features and improving our existing functionalities to help our clients build participation and increase trust in their voting outcomes. With the Ballot Summary Report, dedicated areas for different types of communications, and several quality of life improvements, election admins can improve participation and efficiency. Stay tuned to learn what else is coming!
Find your voting bliss with Ballot Bliss
Ballot Bliss helps organizations of all kinds cast votes and make decisions with ease and confidence. The company is rapidly becoming the platform organizations turn to for a secure and intuitive solution that transforms the voting experience into something worry-free, and as its namesake promises, blissful. If you’d like to learn more about how Ballot Bliss simplifies ballot management for your organization, schedule a discovery call.
