How to create an election

Members will need to have management access to the Elections tool in Get Involved to do the following. The Election tool is the official election system for Wayne State University.

Before creating a form

Things to consider before creating an election in Get Involved:

• Who has access to vote in the election?
  • Just members on the roster
  • All of campus 
  • A specific eligibility list
• Review your organization's election policies and procedures.

Create your election

1. In the Elections management page, click the three dots in the upper right. Select "+Create election".
2. Give your election a name, add instructions and set the date.
   • You can select Active at this time if you've set the dates in the future so you don't forget to do it later, or go to Properties later to mark Active. 
   • Only select "Only Allow Users Listed on the Roster of this Organization to Vote" if you're using the organization roster to manage the eligibility list. If not, leave this unchecked.
3. In the "Ballots" tab, click "+Create Ballot". 
   Multiple ballots can be used if you have multiple eligibility lists. You can also set up multiple pages in a single ballot if you want to separate information, but are using the same group of voters. Example: For Student Senate elections, all students can vote on the Members at Large ballot, but only students registered in the College of Liberal Arts and Sciences can vote for the College of Liberal Arts and Sciences ballot.
4. Edit the ballot like you would do a form.

Setting eligibility lists

There are three different ways an organization can set up their election eligibility list: roster, general (all campus) or specific eligibility list.

Roster

1. Make sure all of your members are listed on your roster.
2. On the Properties page of your election, select "Only Allow Users Listed on the Roster of this Organization to Vote".

General

General elections are a great way to pole the student body. As long as you didn't select "Only Allow Users Listed on the Roster of this Organization to Vote", the election is set up by default to General, but if you want to check, do the following:

1. Click the Ballots tab, then select the ballot you would like to set. 
2. At the top right, click "Form Properties".
3. Under "Access Restrictions" make sure "General Access" is enabled.

Eligibility lists

Special eligibility lists must be requested and created by a system administrator. Please email the list(s) of either AccessIDs or AccessID emails to getinvolved@wayne.edu to request a list to be created. You must provide the list of voters. Our office does not run reports or export listserve data to create the list. 

Once the list is created, continue with the following:

1. Click the Ballots tab, then select the ballot you would like to set. 
2. At the top right, click "Form Properties".
3. Under "Access Restrictions" disable "General Access". 
4. Find the eligibility list(s) and select the following: 
   1. Allow: the list(s) you would like to have access to this election.
   2. Ignore: this is the default. If this is selected, the ballot does nothing with this list.
   3. Deny: this list will be denied from voting.
      Example: If all members are on one eligibility lists with access allowed, but you have another list created for those who have under a 2.0 GPA with that list denied and your policy is that you must have over a 2.0 to vote, then everyone on the denied list will not be allowed to vote, even if they're listed on the allowed list.
5. Hit save.

Make sure you repeat these steps if you are using multiple ballots. 

Share the election

1. The share link can be obtained two ways:
   • From the Elections management page, click "Publish" next to the election you want to share.
   • From the election, click the "Publishing Options" tab.
2. Copy the URL exactly as it is to send it out.
   When the URL is clicked or put into a browser, it redirects to create a unique submission URL that is tied to your specific user account.

How to vote in an election