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Creating an Online Election

I want to create an online election…

  1. Once logged onto SUMS click onto “Elections >> Elections” on the left-hand side of the page
  2. There will be four options in blue boxes on the top right of the page, select +Election
  3. In the name box, this is the name of the role you would like to elect for, for example ‘Course Rep’ or ‘SU President’. Do not give specifics if it is a position that is available for multiple groups, for example ‘Course Rep – year one Biology’, this will be added by the system when you add restrictions later on
  4. In the ‘Description’ box, you can add a role description, or example of the responsibilities of the student should they be successfully elected. This section is NOT required
  5. You can upload thumbnails for nominations (list) or voting in the next section. These will appear in various locations depending on the set up of your website. These are not required, but if you decide to use this feature, please ensure they match the exact specifications listed in light grey text

  6. Method – please select which method best suits the election you are holding and complies with your bye-laws. Options are:

    a. Referendum

    b. STV

    • If your bye-laws require RON (Re-open nominations) to be a candidate, click this, this will display a blue tick

    • If your bye-laws require any tie in votes to be settle in person by the toss of a coin, please select ‘Prevent Tie Break’ this will display a blue tick. If this is not selected and two or more candidates receive the same number of votes, the system will automatically randomly select a winner and break the tie

  7. Voting location:

    a. Online – for all elections run through your website

    b. Offline – this feature allows you to process and record paper ballots. This means that there is still a record of the election without needing to store paper ballots and does not rely on manual STV or vote calculation

  8. Number of positions – how many roles of this type are to be elected for? This will be for each individual role, rather than overall, for example, if you would like two Course Reps for level one Biology, the required entry here is ‘2’, it is not how many Course Reps positions you would like to elect over all courses/year groups. Multiple elections for the same number of positions can be set up in one election.

  9. Display order – what order would you like the elections to appear to students when running multiple at one point in time? The default display order is alphabetical, but you may wish to assign ‘1’ to your SU President election during your main Sabbatical elections so that this appears at the top of the list, for example. This is not required, if left blank, the default order (alphabetical) will be used. Please note – if editing an election later on where this field has been left blank, the system will automatically populate this field with a ‘0’. This will cause an error – please ensure this field is blank or given a value of one or more.
  10. Publish At (API) – if you utilise the Elections API, enter here the date you wish the election to be published on your website
  11. Publish Candidates At (API) – if you utilise the Elections API, enter here the date you wish candidates to be published on your website;
  12. Nominations – to allow students to be able to nominate online, click the light grey box under ‘Allow Nominations’, this will show a blue tick
  13. Enter dates in the format shown in the light grey text, or use the drop-down calendars
  14. If you wish to approve all nominations, click ‘Require Approval’ this will display a blue tick

  15. If you wish to have a Proposer and Seconder required, click ‘Require Proposition and Secondment’ this will display a blue tick

    a. Enter a deadline date and time for this in the format shown in the light grey text

    b. Enter the text you wish to form the content of the email send to the relevant students

  16. Nomination Documents

    a. Select how you would like each document inputted from the drop-down menu. If you do not wish for students to have a certain document as an option, leave this space blank

    b. If certain documents are required for a nomination to be accepted, click ‘Required’ this will display a blue tick

  17. If you wish to restrict this election so that only certain students can nominate, for non-cross campus elected positions (Course Rep and Group elections for example), select ‘Dynamic Nominations’

  18. Select from the drop-down menus whether you wish to allow or exclude certain members from nominating in this election
  19. Select from the drop-down menus whether you wish to set up the restrictions based on Academic data or Groups memberships on your database

  20. Select from the blue fields which data you wish to use, at the lowest level, not all levels are required (for example, a Course Rep election would need ‘Course’ and ‘Year of Study’ but would not need School and College to be selected as well)

    a. Academic

    • Multiple rows can be created within one election

    • Select one field which will stay the same for each, and another field that will change, for example select Level of study – 1 And the course – select all level one courses you wish to create elections for

    • A second row can then be created for a different constant – for example all level 2 courses

    b. Groups

    • Use both fields for all elections (Group List and Committee Roles)

    • Select all Groups from the list that you wish to set up elections for, and select which one committee role this will be for (note, this is not students already in this role, this is so that those successfully elected can be add to the Groups committees module)

    • Create a new row for each different committee role

  21. Submit each row as you go along

  22. Voting - Select ‘Allow Spoilt Votes’ if your bye-laws require this
  23. Enter voting opening and closing times as shown in the light grey text
  24. Voting Rules – If you wish for the same group of students who were able to nominate to be able to vote, then select ‘Automatically generated based on Dynamic Nominations’ If you wish for all students on your database to be able to vote, select ‘Pre-defined list’. If no dynamic nominations were set up, only ‘Pre-defined list’ will appear as an option
  25. Other rules can be added, these can be selected from the drop-down menu. Items can be added to this list on request
  26. For elections that require members to self-define, please select this from the drop-down menu
  27. Click ‘Submit’

I want to create an online Referenda...

  1. Go to ‘Elections’ via the SUMS Dashboard;
  2. Select the ‘+Election’ button;
  3. Ensure all of the following information is inserted:
    1. ‘Name’
    2. ‘Description’
    3. Ensure the method is selected as ‘Referenda’
    4. Ensure the voting location is selected as ‘Online’
    5. ‘Number of Positions’
    6. ‘Display Order’
    7. Ensure ‘Allow Nominations’ is selected
    8. ‘Nominations Open’ and ‘Nominations Close’ dates and times (we would advise that you set these times just three minutes apart to allow staff to add the candidates; leaving Nominations open for a longer time frame can allow students to add their own nominations)
    9. Set your ‘Manifesto Deadline’ as the same as the ‘Nominations Close’ dates & time
    10. Select the ‘Required’ tick box under ‘Reason for Standing (Manifesto)’ – select the relevant input you would like to enable Text, Upload or WYSIWYG (if you would like your candidates to be able to add HTML for their manifestos (WYSIWYG), please contact SUMS at [email protected], and we will work with your SU to add this to your web templates).
    11. Under ‘Voting’ select ‘Allow Spoilt Votes’
    12. Enter your ‘Voting Open’ and ‘Voting Closed’ dates
    13. Click ‘Submit’

This will then feed into your website, and show up in the ‘Current’ tab under your Elections module.

From here, you can select ‘View’ to see all of your election stats, and also add a candidate.

What will a candidate see on the front end of the system when adding elections documents?

When nominating themselves for a position, a member will be able to add any of the fields that have been selected on the SUMS election set up page.

On the voting page however, these three fields will show:

  1. A photo,
  2. A brief blurb,
  3. A manifesto;

Note: Leaflets and posters are not currently accessible via the front end of the system for members to be able to add as these are accessed on SUMS for marketing purposes. This is to allow your SU to print leaflets and posters for members to distribute only, and not for them to show on voting pages.

How do I add 'yes' or 'no' as candidate in an election?

  1. Under your current elections, select ‘View’ and then select ‘Add Candidate’
  2. From the dropdown menu select either ‘Student ID’ or ‘Object Name’ and enter the relevant information
  3. Add a photo if required, along with the candidate’s manifesto
  4. Click ‘Save’

I want to create a Group of Elections within which a candidate can only nominate themselves for one position…

You will need to ensure that you have the ‘[Elections] Groups’ permissions enabled to your account to access this area of the module.

  1. Within the ‘Elections’ module, under ‘Groups’ select ‘Create Election Group’;
  2. Enter the name of the group, for example ‘Course Rep Elections’;
  3. You will then be able to add in any current or future elections that have been created within the module into this group;
  4. Click ‘Submit’.

You do not have to add in any elections to your Group straight away after creation, you can create Groups for future elections which you haven’t yet created and add them later.

These Groups can be modified at any point, including during live elections.

How will this be shown on the front end of the system?

Once a Student has nominated themselves for a position, the ‘Nominate’ button for any other positions within that group will be greyed out and disabled for that member.

Updated on 4th October 2022