How to run a society election with an online voting app

What you need to run a society election online

To run a society, RWA, club or association election online, you need three things: a ballot nobody can change once voting starts, one vote per member, and a count nobody can see until voting ends. MJX Vote, a free Android app from MJX Technologies, does all three on the organiser’s phone and on each member’s own phone.

The paper way works, but it asks a lot of a volunteer committee. Slips have to be printed, a ballot box watched and a hall booked, and members who are away on the day simply miss out. Then comes a long count, and after it, the doubts.

An online election moves the voting to the phones members already carry. What it must not do is make the vote less secret or the count easier to question. That is the standard worth holding any voting app to.

How MJX Vote keeps one vote per member and the ballot secret

Each voter votes once, and each phone votes once per election. In a community election, where members are identified by a voter ID number, each ID number also votes only once. In practice this means a family sharing one phone gets one vote from it; a second member of the family votes from their own phone.

The ballot is secret by design. A ballot in MJX Vote carries no voter and no phone, and the record of who has voted is kept apart from the record of what was voted. While voting is open, the organiser sees how many people have voted — never who voted for whom.

The record is also tamper-evident. Ballots, votes and the audit log can only be added to, never edited, and every ballot is chained to the one before it, so any change would show. That is the right protection for the internal election of a society, club or association. MJX Vote is not built for public or government elections.

How to set up a society election on MJX Vote, step by step

The organiser does all of this from one phone. Members need only the app and the election code.

1. Install the MJX Vote Android app and sign in as the organiser with your mobile number and a PIN.
2. Create the election and add the posts to be filled — for example secretary, treasurer and committee members.
3. Add the candidates for each post with their photos, so members can vote by picking a face rather than reading a list of names.
4. Add the voters who may vote, or let members do it themselves: open nominations and enrolment, and candidates apply for a post with a photo while members add themselves to the voter list.
5. Share the six-letter election code, or put up its QR on the notice board or in the society’s group. The same code takes people to nominations, to the voter list, to the ballot and, at the end, to the result.
6. Approve or remove each nomination and each self-enrolled voter.
7. Press Open when voting should begin. From that moment the ballot and the voter list are frozen, and nominations are closed.

How members vote from their own phones

Members come into the election in one of three ways. A member whose mobile number is on the voter list gets a code on WhatsApp. A member can instead use the voter code and PIN on a slip the organiser hands out. And in an open election, a member comes in with the election PIN and their name.

WhatsApp is one way in, not a requirement. A society where some older members do not use WhatsApp can give those members voter slips, and they vote with the code and PIN printed on them.

On the ballot, each member votes by picking a candidate’s photo. They can do it from home, from work or from another city, which is the main reason to move a society election onto phones at all: members who could never make it to the hall on the day still get their vote.

How to close voting and publish the result

While voting runs, the organiser’s screen shows how many members have voted and nothing more. There is no running tally to watch, for the organiser or anyone else, so nobody can be accused of seeing the result early.

1. Keep an eye on how many members have voted, and remind the rest the way your society usually does.
2. Close voting at the time you announced. The count is made at that moment and sealed.
3. Publish the result when the committee is ready.
4. Once it is published, every voter sees the result in the app through the same election code.

What to settle before an online society election

The app keeps the vote secret and the count honest; the rules of the election are still the society’s. Before voting opens, agree who may vote, which posts are being filled, and when voting opens and closes, in line with your society’s bye-laws, and tell members well in advance.

Settle the voter list carefully, because it is frozen the moment you press Open. If members enrol themselves through the QR, check each one before voting starts. The same goes for nominations: once voting opens, they are closed.

Finally, tell members how they will come in — a WhatsApp code, a voter slip, or the election PIN and their name — so nobody finds out on the day that they do not know how to vote.

A society election on phones is worth running only if it is as secret as paper and harder to doubt. MJX Vote gives each member one vote, keeps the ballot apart from the voter, and seals the count until the organiser closes it.