Vote411 Steps for League of Women Voters of the Cincinnati Area (Steps in Order) (1/29/15)

Vote411 Steps for League of Women Voters of the Cincinnati Area (steps in order) (1/29/15)

1. Ask Board of Elections for GIS (Geographic Information Systems) district sets 2. Load GIS data from BOE and Census (need to load as defining offices. Different than in SmartVoter) 3. Review which offices are running this election (check Who & What or archive at smartvoter.org/oh/hm from four years ago for most offices, 6 years for judges) 4. Define each office with description and include salary info. Include link to help page on lwvcincinati.org* 5. Ask PDC/Board to come up candidate questions/finalize questions. VS Committee does retain editorial control, if questions need to be changed immediately), but should follow the spirit of any board decision (Ex. Board doesn't approve township candidate questions. VS Committee can adapt questions from a similar office) 6. Update candidate invite letter text and candidate instructions. Receive president approval. 7. Load questions into Vote411 system and set any word limits (must complete before candidates are invited to participate, otherwise they might miss the opportunity to answer questions) 8. Update all email templates in Vote411 for current election 9. Define race categories 10. Define bio fields for each office type 11. Define races through the Race Wizard. Set as "closed" for primaries. Set as "open" for general or special elections. 12. After candidates are certified, add candidate names to system. Identify write-in candidates through the bio field. May have to check BOE lists for write-in candidates added later. How: Preferred way is to format an excel sheet according to Vote411 specifications. Can convert BOE PDF of candidate contact info and then format it for Vote411. Also can manually add into Vote411 directly. (see Phyllis’ email from May 2014 on problems she had)

13. Invite candidates: Decide for this election if you want to send candidates the unique url code in the letter or by email. For letter: You can export candidate info from Vote411 as an Excel sheet with the candidates' unique url code. Then can create letters with Word using Mailmerge. For Email: In primary 2014, the export didn’t' work properly but reported it got fixed. We didn’t provide unique URL. We asked them to email us first and then we had Vote411 system email them with their unique URL. (See Phyllis’ email from May 2014 on problems she had). Add your email address as a BCC on the “receipt” email – the candidates get this email every time they make a change and if you BCC yourself you’ll get the emails as well and can see what they’ve submitted. 14. Make sure the letter/email includes something about the candidate clicking "Submit." Their information will not be finalized until they submit. 15. In Race Category section, set races in order of appearance on the ballot - may have to check a sample ballot. The list of candidates and issues might not be in ballot order. LWVUS may have to define ballot order for Ohio.

16. Create an excel sheet to manage which candidate profiles have been reviewed. Vote411 system doesn't not support this (different than SmartVoter). Once the races are published, any changes the candidate makes to his or her profile, the info is released to the public automatically without a review. 17. When all photos are uploaded, email the Help Desk to sync the voter guide. This will ensure that all images will appear in the guide. 18. If candidates post URLs to more information, we may have to shorten them using bit.ly or Hoot Suite to avoid disturbing the formatting of the page. 19. Email Meghan Brown before publishing to ensure that everything has been imported to the master Vote411 guide. 20. Continuous monitoring of voter guide@ inbox, including processing candidate requests and public's inquiries

21. Add short notice to candidates to lwvcincinnati.org homepage to email [email protected] 22. Add Initiatives races to Vote411 system through "Race Wizard" once ballot language is approved and issue numbers are assigned. 23. Add LWV ballot explanations from both LWVCA and LWV Ohio. Identify which League wrote the summary. 24. Create visually impaired data for LWVCA site 25. For general election: Blast email candidates when printed guide is available and where it will be distributed and thank them for participating. 26. Continuous until week before election: Follow-up with candidates who haven't yet responded by using League office volunteers 27. Export candidate data from Vote411 for printed guide (Who and What of Elections) 28. Prep suburban city and village candidate list for WW (only needed for odd-number years) 29. Ask League members to test their personalized ballots so to troubleshoot any issues with the system. 30. Prep list of all county ballot issues with ballot language and any explanations for Who and What. 31. Post election cleanup: Archive all emails by using "Archive" button in Gmail (You can use 'All Mail' to see every message to and from voter guide@) 32. Add election results - Mark all "winners" in Vote411 and archive all losing candidates so that only the winning candidates appear. 33. Schedule post-election meeting with all those involved with Vote411/Who and What 34. Review analytics of usage? 35. Create report for Voter of candidate usage, number of visitors, number of people using lookup feature, mobile users, etc.

Notes: 1. For general elections, need to let candidates know in invitation letters that by a certain date, any changes made to their profile will not appear in Who & What. 2. Need to always use the same inbox so we can find all responses. 3. Need to write editorial guidelines for candidate responses. Refer to terms of service from Vote411 to get LWVCA started. 4. If a candidate has been contacted by another League, such as the state league or neighboring League, LWVCA can add candidate information directly into Vote411 as he or she supplied it to the other League. Also we do not contact the candidate. 5. If it is not the candidate who emails for request nor the email isn't attached to the campaign website (ex: [email protected]), double-check person works for candidate via google search or phone call.

6. Typically, we wait until candidates are certified to invite them into the system so major party candidates or those who won primaries, do not get an advantage to minor party/write-in candidates.

*lwvcincinnati.org voter help page (could parallel ads from Who & What) We can add this as a link to all races and initiative descriptions, in case users has questions about ballot terms, how to watch a debate, etc. Links to YouTube Videos. New for 2014 General election.