Voting for Organizational Change

Voting is an important tool that sometimes helps my family of three decide what to do on Saturday. Tomorrow, citizens of the United States will use it to choose a new President. Likewise, some businesses use voting to help make all kinds of important change decisions, according to Deepak Prakash, vice president of eBallot (formerly Votenet Solutions), which powers CUES eVote: Elect and Educate.

Electronic ballots “are ideal instruments to ensure change is installed in a fair, easy, secure way in an organization,” Prakash explains. Merger ratifications, bylaws changes and board member elections—all events when a lot of people need to weigh in—are typical times that credit unions use electronic elections now. But Prakash suggests they could also use electronic voting for internal decision-making done by smaller groups.

Members of credit union teams “can vote on multiple issues or positions using one credential and have all the tracking and accountability benefits that electronic balloting provides in larger elections,” he explains. “This makes it as easy as buying flights online. You click on it. As an added advantage, an internal team can set up a decision-making ‘election’ so a key expert’s vote gets more weight.”

While the power of voting can transform a nation, it can also help a family make a simple decision about how to spend Saturday afternoon—or your credit union choose a system, decide whether to move forward with a new product or resolve a host of other large and small decisions.

Lisa Hochgraf is senior editor at CUES.