Beyond the Ballot Box: Practical Insights into Electronic Voting for Meetings

0:00 – Property Flute Platform and Presenter Background

0:00 Craig Moore: Hello everyone, and welcome to my presentation on the Property Flute voting and meeting management platform. I'm going to give you a rundown on a couple of the important features and share with you my thoughts about why people are using electronic voting platforms, and how we see things evolving with electronic voting. My background is as a senior strata manager and a managing broker for a firm in Vancouver.

0:27 I'm the co-founder of Property Flute and the subject matter expert. I'm familiar with the systems of several management companies, both as an employee and as a client at three strata complexes. I've managed and participated in all kinds of strata corporations: residential, commercial, mixed use, with and without sections and types, and bare land strata corporations. I've taken care of strata resorts and hotels, and some with fractional interest in each strata lot, so up to four separate owners.

1:10 And I have dealt with strata properties with air space parcels. And through all of my time managing those organizations and dealing with voting, it started out fairly straightforward for me.

1:25 But as I got into taking care of more sophisticated, more complex organizations, it became quite clear to me what a challenge it can be to record everybody properly, take care of the votes, make sure that the voting is done properly, etc. And when the time came that we started to create Property Flute and I saw the advantages there, it turns out that I enjoyed using that platform enormously, certainly for, as I say, my more sophisticated and larger clients.

2:01 And it made my life so much easier, so I wouldn't go back.

2:09 – Why Electronic Voting Platforms Help Meetings

2:09 Craig Moore: Today you'll see a snippet of what happens in Property Flute. If you're not yet familiar with how the setup and voting processes work and want to see a full demonstration, please be sure to contact us. The overview today is that I'll cover quorum tracking, council election, our reporting module, and trends in electronic meetings. So, quorum tracking, and as you can see on the screen, electronic platforms and why they're important.

2:44 There's a lot of reasons why they're important, why they're very helpful. I do think of what it means to have a meeting run by a strata manager versus a self-managed organization. But we do discuss this ourselves, the differences, and certainly a strata manager is going to have more practice and usually will be more versed in the Strata Property Act. But not always: as a new property manager they're still learning how it goes at a meeting, and an electronic platform can assist them to make sure they don't miss things.

3:20 Likewise for a self-managed organization, the electronic platform will take them through all the steps, make sure that counting's done properly, that thresholds are met, and just provide better structure for the whole meeting itself.

3:35 – Quorum Tracking and Accurate Vote Records

3:35 Craig Moore: The electronic meeting is going to help you have an accurate record of voter registration, it'll ensure unbiased recording of votes, it'll help to ensure the voting process follows the requirements of the Strata Property Act. As I've mentioned, it will record voters arriving and leaving the meeting, and it will track who voted and how someone voted, except of course when you're using the secret ballot function. And the electronic platform can prompt you when quorum is not met or is no longer present.

4:13 So of course quorum is established at the start of the meeting, but it's handy to just have that extra little reminder to make sure that you've met quorum. And then it does get recorded in the audit trail of the platform, and then produced in the report at the end. Council elections: so when we started producing Property Flute we had several debates about how to do a council election, and it turns out that there's three popular ways of doing it.

4:41 – Three Methods of Electing Council

4:55 Craig Moore: But as a reminder, the Strata Property Act doesn't indicate any particular method of electing a council, and in my experience I haven't seen bylaws that lay out the procedure for how it must be done, although that is possible. Given that there's three types within our platform to do the council election, then the users will need to decide which method is perhaps most strategic for them, given what the current council or board wants to achieve.

5:28 We've seen all of these three methods chosen by our clients, and recently the ballot cast method seems to be most popular. So as I go through these three different methods, think about which one you would use, and if you would want voters to have the chance to only vote yes, or if they should have a chance to also vote no or to abstain on a vote. So the first type is vote by group.

5:58 Typically you've got a few, or perhaps up to seven people who all want to be on council, and it's not hotly contested, and everyone's comfortable with voting them in with a single vote as a group.

6:06 – Individual and Ballot Cast Election Methods

6:17 Craig Moore: And the results are fairly straightforward and everyone's happy. Now, second type, individual voting: so you're voting in each person one at a time. Gives you an opportunity to vote yes, no or abstain for each individual person, so that can present a variety of results. Often it's straightforward and it won't be problematic. But remember, now this is individuals being voted in by majority one at a time. Although the platform, our platform, allows you to do it all at once, you are still voting them as individuals.

7:07 And the result may be, in this example, Tom Jones received one vote in favour, zero opposed and three abstentions. So for his individual vote, strictly for this example, he got one vote, which means he got 100 percent of the votes, so clearly he was voted in by majority. And then the others, you can see here, Eric got two votes, or 66 percent, and Tess got three votes, or 75 percent.

7:38 Still a valid vote, you know who your council is, nothing wrong with that. As it turns out that's the method I'm most familiar with and the one that I've used most often. But the third type is by ballot cast. Here nominees are voted on individually and require a majority vote to pass, however it's just a yes, with no opportunity to vote no or to abstain. With the result being that if Tom only gets one vote, now he's not voted onto council, because he only got 25 percent of the votes.

8:21 And Eric and Tess both got full marks and they got onto council. So there's the potential for being strategic about which type of election process to utilize. Our more important message here is that we do provide for the different types of voting, and for whichever electronic platform you might use, do give this some thought before you go ahead with it.

8:38 – Reporting Module and Audit Log Reports

8:54 Craig Moore: We also have a reporting module. We've implemented some new meeting reports recently. The reports provide a record of the meeting that can be saved and printed. It's a convenience for the platform operator or property manager, which is an advantage that sets their mind at ease for minute preparation during and after the meeting. Reports in Property Flute include property manager report, report for voters or the strata, and then a full audit and log report.

9:35 So on the screen you can see what a typical result of votes looks like, going through the agenda, doing a council election. There were no three-quarters votes here per se, but this is the type of data that you'll see in the report, along with several other things. In the property manager report you're going to see the results of the votes, the council election results, which includes the vote type and vote counts with percentages.

10:12 You'll see an attendance listing showing voting entitlement, and it lists all strata lots for which there is at least one vote submitted during the meeting. It'll have quorum details, which lists quorum information at the time each vote is ended. And there's an agenda and resolution summary. The second type of report is for voters and the strata. It's the same as the property manager report but does not contain the attendance listing or quorum details.

10:43 And then lastly there's a full audit and log report. So that's a meeting summary with basic information, including the strata or community name, start and end times of the meeting, if there were any bylaw resolutions, and the council or board size range, so three to seven members on council for example. It shows the access privileges of the operators of the platform, it shows meeting statistics, and meeting audit and meeting log, which together are a full trail of every setting and action taken while setting up and running the meeting.

11:31 And then it has the agenda and resolution summary as well. And lastly, at the top of the report there is a warning. It states that the report is generated by admin and it contains IP addresses of voters, so you want to take care with that information. But it is an important document, if you truly had to be careful and if someone contests the voting. You could go through and see exactly what was done throughout the entire setup and process of the meeting.

12:11 And take note, reports can be generated an unlimited number of times, so if they need to be printed again the operator can go back and get another copy if necessary.

12:27 – Trends in Electronic Meetings and Attendance

12:27 Craig Moore: Lastly, trends in electronic meetings. What are we seeing? Well, we've noticed that the computer literacy of users is improving, although a small percentage of people still have challenges with logging in and understanding how applications work. The reality is that is mostly a function of a person's age, or simply their awareness of how to use their own computer or other device such as a tablet or phone. As a property manager myself, I've seen meetings conducted more effectively with an electronic platform, ensuring that the meeting and voting processes are consistent and more likely to follow the requirements of the Strata Property Act.

13:10 We see a better opportunity for observers on our platform, as opposed to others where you may be challenged by having to include someone in polling, whereas for ours, if they're not registered to vote they can still be in attendance at the electronic meeting but then not affected by the voting that goes on. An interesting topic that came up recently was that an owner said they really wanted to make sure they could get on and do the electronic voting and not be enabled for manual voting, which is always an opportunity if someone just can't get logged in, then we can always enable them for manual voting.

14:01 But this person felt that they would be more comfortable doing the electronic voting so that people weren't necessarily seeing how they voted. Not that it was a secret ballot, but they just felt more comfortable voting when others couldn't see how they voted. That could apply at an in-person meeting. However, if you've got the electronic voting enabled, it is, you might call it, a mixed voting model, where you're in person, you've got electronic voting going on, people are going to be probably more comfortable voting their mind rather than having to put up a hand or a ballot.

14:44 They're probably going to feel more comfortable just casting their vote electronically. You might get a higher attendance at meetings. I suspect we've seen a higher attendance at electronic meetings because it's easier overall, easier to attend, easier to cast your vote. And generally speaking your vote is not seen by others, so some people will feel more comfortable in that scenario.

15:19 – Secret Ballots, Hand Counts and Motions

15:19 Craig Moore: Of course electronic meetings are going to help with secret ballots. So in BC we don't have the need to satisfy secret ballots for electronic voting, but we still see it enabled, because our clients want that to happen. So the electronic platform provides for that much more easily than doing it in person. Something else that happens: we're seeing that not every single item throughout the meeting is voted on electronically.

15:59 Maybe it's the approval of the agenda or approval of minutes, sometimes the operator or the chair will want to just get a fairly casual count by show of hands, or verbally saying yes or no. It helps to keep the meeting moving along more easily. But that is something that happens at some meetings, not all meetings. It just helps to keep the flow moving well. Something that may seem small but is very useful, certainly as a property manager I really appreciate this, and that's motioning and seconding.

16:37 It's very efficient at an electronic meeting. Often at general meetings it can be awkward, or at least time consuming, to get and to record the people making a motion and a second. With an electronic platform it's usually instantaneously done, as soon as the popup is displayed. So lastly, typical costs of electronic voting platforms.

17:05 – Pricing and Complex Voting Entitlements

17:05 Craig Moore: There are managed versus self-run options. They can be less than $100 per meeting and well into thousands of dollars per meeting. The higher price reflects that most platforms are managed for the users and not self-run. We offer both options with Property Flute. Our standard pricing is based on the size of the strata or the community, and that is shown on our homepage at the bottom of that page on our website.

17:43 That pricing reflects the full service option of having us set up and manage the entire meeting, and for most stratas it includes two hours of setup time and four hours of our attendance at the meeting, with any additional time billed as an extra. Larger meetings would require more time for setup and attendance, and to a degree that time is included in our standard pricing model. We also now have additional pricing for clients that want to do it all on their own and operate under licence, or a discounted repeat user price.

18:24 So lastly, keep in mind Property Flute was designed first and foremost for strata and homeowner associations, which means it can handle all the tricky situations of owners with multiple units, proxies representing multiple units, and fractional voting entitlements that often occur for commercial and mixed use communities. There is the advantage for electronic platforms to improve the experience for observers, secret ballots, status tracking, audit reports and meeting summary reports.

19:01 And we're getting more and more used to using this tool now, our clients are getting more and more used to seeing the results and the efficiencies that are being gained. So I hope you found my presentation interesting, and Ryan will now take your questions.

19:19 Ryan Grant: It looks like we do have a couple of questions here. Another question about self-run versus managed, particularly with Property Flute. So to elaborate on that further, as Craig had mentioned, we offer both options. We do offer both options, but the self- run is only available to the management companies, or to third-party companies that do management solutions for running general meetings for stratas.

19:52 – Q&A: Self-Run Versus Managed Service

19:54 Ryan Grant: That way, we found it easier that the self-managed stratas, for example, they don't need to spend time to learn Property Flute and deal with setting it all up and whatnot. We found it easier and just better and more efficient, a good experience for everybody at the end of the day, if we just offer managed service options to the stratas that are only going to be using it once a year, for example.

20:25 But for the property management companies, they are able to subscribe to a licence from us, and they're able to use it for as many meetings as they'd like with their clients, as long as they want to learn how to use the platform and manage it. Otherwise they do have the option to hire us as well, and we can be like a third-party assistant and come in and operate the platform for them.

20:52 Next question: so there's another question about tenants, if they're able to either participate in general meetings, or join the meeting just to listen as an observer. So yes, we do allow for that as well in the platform. When we first import all the voters that are going to be there, and if there's any proxy assignments, we can set all that up and make sure that any tenant that's legally allowed to vote on behalf of the owner, that they can be input into the system and make sure that they're able to vote at the time of the general meeting.

21:19 – Q&A: Tenants, Council Meetings and Amendments

21:38 Ryan Grant: So that's fully supported. In the meantime, another one: is the platform only for AGMs? No, so it's a general meeting platform, it could also be used for council meetings. We don't see people typically wanting to use it for council meetings, it's kind of overboard for those, but it definitely can be used for them too. It is meant for general meetings, council meetings and other community kind of use cases, but we just tailored the platform specifically to the strata use case.

22:17 Most all of our clients use it for general meetings, so whether it's a special general meeting or annual general meeting, that's the use case that seems to be popular. So yes, for another question about council meetings: it says owners can't participate but they can attend, and they don't usually know what's going on at those council meetings. So yes, if a council wants to use Property Flute for their council meeting to collect votes and whatnot, then they can.

22:54 And if they wish to allow for observers to attend the meeting as well, then that's up to them. But yes, they can use the platform if they want to collect and document the voting aspect of what goes on at the meeting, but we just haven't seen it being used yet for that purpose. Someone else wants to know, does the platform allow for amendments to resolutions? Yes it does, so it fully supports amendments.

23:29 – Q&A: Vote Capture and Chat Limitations

23:29 Ryan Grant: So live during the meeting the platform is very dynamic, you're able to change things on the fly, which makes it nice and handy for when you have a motion from the floor or anything like that. And if you need to amend any resolution then you can do that. And someone else wants to know, can you capture council votes between meetings? So we currently do not have a feature for that.

24:02 I know some of the other management solutions may have those types of features, but our platform currently was not designed explicitly for council meeting use cases, so we have not integrated a capture solution for in between council meetings, that things could be captured. And let's see, someone else wants to know if the platform can facilitate discussions. No, it does not have a built-in chat system. So the platform right now is just for collecting the votes, that's what its main purpose is.

24:50 If people want to chat they need to use, like, we integrate with Zoom, is how the communication aspect of the meeting will be run usually, is through a Zoom meeting, and then people can use the Zoom chat to send messages and comments. But in the platform we do not have a separate chatting kind of communication aspect for the observers or for the other owners to communicate while the meeting is running.

25:25 It's usually best to just ask the questions, raise your hand, ask a question, and deliberate at the time of the resolution. And it looks like we ran out of time for questions now, so we will run on to the next presentation.