The American Society of Appraisers conducts officer elections annually to fill open leadership positions on its Executive Committee, Board of Governors, and Discipline Committees. During some years, its membership also votes on constitutional amendments. ASA had been contracting with an outside firm to administer elections, but that solution was expensive, time-consuming, and offered the association limited control. With configuration assistance from Aptify, ASA was able to bring the process in-house, saving significant money and frustration.

1. “We faced three major challenges while
we were creating our in-house solution,”
said Sharlyne Tsai, ASA’s Director of
Information Technology. First, ASA had to
keep voting anonymous while still keeping
track of those who had voted in order
to send reminder notifications to those
who had yet to cast a ballot. The second
challenge was accounting for which seats
were open from year to year. And the third
was allowing its members to be able to
vote for or against various constitutional
amendments, depending on the year.
Numerous smaller challenges also arose,
including the need to post and announce
nominee biographies online before the
elections and creating different ballots
for different members, depending on
their geographic location and appraisal
discipline.”
Taking all this into consideration, ASA
leveraged the existing functionality of Aptify
to build its ideal solution.
“To start,” says Tsai, “we have a welcome
election center page, where we introduce
the user to our election and provide them
with instructions and an overview of the
voting process.” Once members start to
vote, they immediately see the available
ballots they are able to vote on, depending
on their voting eligibilities. Within the ballot,
members are able to write in candidates or
to submit their vote for a ballot candidate.
“Sometimes we do have multiple open
positions that are available for members
to vote on. We also had to account for
multiple write-ins. So instead of a one-to-
one ratio, we had to do a many-to-many
ratio to create write-ins for every single
position per open seat.” Additionally,
members are able to view candidate bios
while voting by clicking on each candidate
name from the ballot page.
Bringing the process in-house has resulted
in multiple benefits. ASA has seen an
immediate savings of approximately $7,000
a year. “Another benefit we’ve seen,” says
Fran Tucker, ASA’s Information Technology
Manager, “is we are able to have more
of the election under our control. We
can set up when we’re ready and we can
easily edit items. We don’t have to resend
information, make double entries, or worry
about single sign-on. And we can make
corrections on the fly if we need to.”
Election results can now be seen in real
time, not only allowing ASA to post the
outcome as soon as voting closes, but
during the voting cycle, so it can send
reminders out to those who still need to
vote. “All in all,” Tucker says, “it has worked
out very well for us.”
Easing the Election Challenge
SNAPSHOT
Customer Profile
The American Society of Appraisers
is a multi-discipline, non-profit,
international organization
of professional appraisers
representing all appraisal
disciplines: Appraisal Review and
Management, Business Valuation,
Gems and Jewelry, Machinery and
Technical Specialties, Personal
Property, and Real Property.
ASA’s mission is to foster the
public trust of its members and
the appraisal profession through
compliance with the highest
levels of ethical and professional
standards.
How ASA leveraged its Aptify system to bring an essential and
complex process in-house
The American Society of Appraisers conducts officer elections annually to fill open
leadership positions on its Executive Committee, Board of Governors, and Discipline
Committees. During some years, its membership also votes on constitutional amendments.
ASA had been contracting with an outside firm to administer elections, but that solution was
expensive, time-consuming, and offered the association limited control. With configuration
assistance from Aptify, ASA was able to bring the process in-house, saving significant money
and frustration.
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