Ballot Mailing Best Practices
Improve voter turnout with our new and improved ballot envelope! We have researched and improved our Secret Ballot Envelope in such a way to create a Best Practice solution for secret ballots and your next election. We’ve had a secret ballot envelope for quite some time and have worked with our customers to create a new version that accomplishes nearly every requirement of a secret ballot mailing.
A Secret Ballot Envelope is important to protect the identity of the voter. It is used in conjunction with a ballot and a #9 return envelope. The completed ballot is placed in a Secret Ballot Envelope (which is large enough to hold a folded 8.5″ x 11″ sheet of paper, but small enough to fit in a standard size return envelope) and sealed. Then the Secret Ballot Envelope gets placed in the #9 return envelope and gets mailed back to the management company. The management company can then open all the #9 envelopes and take the sealed ballot envelopes to the meeting for counting.
For those who need to keep track of which homeowners have returned their ballot or proxy, we have a simple option to add the homeowners mailing address and/or lot number to the return address area of the #9 envelope. This allows the HOA management companies to see who has voted, while not being able to see how they voted for the election.
There might be a few individuals who say “Ah, nobody cares how other people vote.”. Well, we might argue that anyone who says something like that has probably not served of a Homeowner Board or talked with their neighbors who don’t vote out of fear that their vote might be held against them. We might also argue that the number of homeowners voting could improve when a secure and trustworthy process is followed.
New Features of our Ballot Envelope:
– Instructions for Homeowner – The envelope more clearly explains to the homeowner/recipient/voter what their role is and how to best use the envelope in order to keep their ballot secret.
– Instructions for Management Company – The envelope contains instructions for the management company, board member or whoever handles the secret ballot so they can process it while protecting the intentions of a secret ballot.
– Save a Page – With good instructions built right into the envelope, you no longer need to try and wordsmith some good directions in your own document. This might just free up some space in your letter or possibly save an entire sheet of paper.
– Professionally Designed – This new envelope looks far more professional in its design which may lead to better utilization and compliance.
– Best Practices – We’ve attempted to incorporate the appropriate instructions and simplistic design in an effort to create a “Best Practices” solution to proxy and Secret Ballot mailings.
– Same Security Tint – Our Secret Ballot Envelope continues to have security tint on the inside of the envelope to keep prying eyes from trying to see through the envelope.
– Same Great Price – While we believe this envelope is far superior to our earlier version we’ve decided to leave the price the same as its always been.
We believe this is the best way to solicit proxies and votes from your members; its secure, its fast and its easy. Give it a try for your next election or proxy mailing and let us know how it worked for you.
