Many farm organizations want to offer a hybrid in-person/virtual option to allow attendees more flexibility, but when voting is required, the process can be cumbersome.
That’s why the Beef Farmers of Ontario tested the Simply Voting app at its recent annual general meeting, to see if it could provide delegates unable to attend with an option beyond the usual live stream.
LeaAnne Wurmli, BFO director of communications, said the plan resulted from multiple discussions among delegates, the board, and the potential to offer a hybrid model for the annual meeting.
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The BFO’s long-term relationship with service provider Data on the Spot prompted the use of Simply Voting during COVID-19 for advanced elections in 2021 and 2022.
It was demonstrated this year by Kim Jo Bliss, a BFO director from northern Ontario, who couldn’t attend in person.
“Before we introduced the hybrid annual general meeting, we wanted to test out the technology to see if it would work,” said Wurmli. “(Bliss) voted from home, and her report back was that it went seamlessly.”
The technology’s speed and agility fit an interactive voting platform, unlike the typical clickers normally used, which isolated at-home delegates from voting and required votes to be aggregated into an Excel file to generate results.
In contrast, the web platform automatically provides results within moments, and dovetailed into the ranked ballot process BFO introduced last year.
“It definitely helped with the speed of the elections this year, even though we had some delegates that struggled a bit to get online and get their ballots open,” Wurmli said.
“But once they were open and could cast their votes, it went quite quickly.”
Jason Leblond, BFO vice-president, praised the staff who ensured the software met the criteria and praised producers for working through any challenges with good humour and patience.
“(Their determination) proved that it worked,” he said.
Tara Terpstra, Ontario Pork’s vice-chair, attended the BFO meeting and said the process appeared seamless with significant producer buy-in for the new technology.
“Voting technology is evolving,” said Terpstra. “Ontario Pork is assessing different ways to make the voting process more efficient and user-friendly for our members.”
BFO is evaluating feedback from voting delegates on several annual meeting-related questions, including impressions of the voting software.
“We’ll be having a more fulsome conversation on how it went and what we might want to do next year, If it looks the same or if it looks slightly different,” said Wurmli.
While the annual meeting will always have a livestream, Leblond said Simply Voting gives producers a new, easy-to-navigate tool to incorporate voting and resolution debate.
