Sorority elections are a huge deal. You know. We don’t have to tell you. But we’re going to anyway, so bear with us, pretty please.
*Ahem*
Sorority elections are a huge deal.
You’re essentially deciding who is going to run the executive board and who every other officer is going to be, from the president down to . . . everyone beneath the president. And t-shirt chair. T-shirt chair is important! Every position you elect is important, because each plays a role in how the sorority is managed and maintained throughout the semester. Picking the wrong recruitment chair can lead to abysmal numbers for potential new members. A bad treasurer can cause the chapter budget to crash and burn.
A bad t-shirt chair means your t-shirts suck. But if your t-shirts suck, your promotion will suck, and if your promotion sucks--it’s a downward spiral, trust us.
Elections are crucial to how the chapter is run, yet there are so many parts of a sorority election that you can either improve or screw up along the way that it can make your heads spin.
Ah, democracy. Am I right?
One of the things you’ll want to consider to help you run sorority elections is sorority software. As we’ve discussed often, sorority software is involved in every aspect of how sorority chapter management--from recruitment software to financial software to communication software and everything between.
So, how does software impact sorority elections? We’re here to discuss just that. So let’s get ready to Cast Your Ballot, and answer the question once and for all: Is Software the Best Way to Vote in Sorority Elections?
The Case for an Easier Sorority Election
Maybe you’ve been through this scenario before. It’s time to hold your sorority elections, but the process has been dragging on for hours. Counting and recounting votes. So many sisters going over their time for speeches. For some reason the election is being held the same day as the speeches, which in hindsight was probably not the best idea. You’re tired. You’re hangry. When will this end? Just let the candidates fight it out in a no-holds-barred cage match.
The survivors are the winners.
The end.
Actually, the end is nowhere in sight and you’re left wondering--what could have made this process easier, if only a little?
Software has that potential. There is dedicated voting software out there, for sororities that might find that useful. For example, consider Election Runner, an online and easy to use piece of software your sorority chapter can use to cast electronic ballots. It’s extremely affordable, with prices ranging from free up to about $30, depending on the number of sisters voting.
The cloud-based Election Runner offers many indispensable features, such as encrypted, secure voting, mobile access, results tabulation and more. Software like this will dramatically simplify the voting and election process, and before you know it you and your sisters will be out celebrating the results with the winners--because you’re all winners when you hold a successful election.
When you use software, you perhaps lose a bit of tradition, say if your chapter has always used paper ballots in the past, or done the voting in person. You lose a bit of the human element of seeing each other’s faces and spending the time together in this important task.
But what you lose in sorority election tradition, you gain in more quality time to spend with sisters, and in the end, which is more important? Plus, if you have membership ranging into the hundreds of sisters, electronic voting is obviously a major time saver.
The Case for Software to Do Sorority Elections--and More
Sorority activities don’t stop for elections. During elections, the chapter keeps on doing what chapters do, and elections involve more than simply voting and moving on. Busy sisters still have to observe protocols, keep records, and give speeches. But what if software could at least help with some of this, and perform other tasks as well?
These days it’s important for sorority sisters to get good mileage out of their software. More and more software companies strive to build multi-purpose or all-in-one type platforms for their users. That translates to a more comprehensive experience for you. One example of this type of software is OmegaOne. Primarily, OmegaOne is meant for communication purposes, to enable you and your sisters to communicate on a number of subjects relating to the chapter, using text, video, pictures, uploading various types of files and more, all from your mobile phone.
OmegaOne’s “Questions” feature gives you the power to survey and poll sisters about issues. Yet what if you used this feature to create a ballot for the different positions in a sorority election? Sisters are already familiar with the software, so you could create this scenario fairly seamlessly. Sisters running for positions could also upload videos of their speeches, available to everyone online without having to dedicate a specific time to giving and listening to candidates’ platforms.
It might take a little extra effort to set up voting, since it’s not a dedicated voting application. However, once elected, sisters can start using OmegaOne right away for chapter management. So if you’re willing to go the extra mile, this is a great all-in-one software that can help make your sorority elections a success.
So you’ve got the software, you’ve voted, and elections are over until the next semester. Breathe a sigh of relief, and share some funny internet cat pictures with each other. That’s what we would do. What’s that you say? Internet cat pictures are old news? Well, then just kick back and enjoy each other’s company.
Whether you think software will help with your sorority elections or not, it’s certainly worth looking into. Between dedicated voting software and all-in-one software, there may very well be something that will work for you.
Have you tried using software for sorority elections? Or does your chapter stick with tried-and-true paper ballots, live elections and speeches? Let us know how you cast your vote in the comments below!
