Online platform for discussion and voting
January 31, 2021 8:44 AM Subscribe
I work with a committee that does political endorsements and I'd like to introduce an online platform of some kind to strengthen this process. Participants have a wide-range of skills and comfort with computers.
Current state: we get a heads up by email maybe a day before our meeting about potential endorsements. Then at the meeting we are asked to vote. During election season this is really overwhelming with limited options for real participation. There's no way anyone has reviewed the strengths and weaknesses of every school board candidate etc in the one day or 1 hour before we vote.
I've worked with another membership org that used three online platforms to help with this kind of thing: A slack for informal dicussions, something called "discuss" which is an online platform that allows for longer/more formal conversation, and various voting apps for actually voting on issues.
I think for the group I'm in now, we'd need the simplest possible platform where we could post potential endorsements (both candidates and issues) in advance, and folks can weigh in on pros and cons before the meeting. Not sure if we'd actually do voting there, but we could do like straw polls.
So what platform would be best for this? Again, I need to emphasize this group includes folks from a wide range of educational and class backgrounds and ages, and so the simpler the better. Plus I'd like to pick ONE thing and stick to it, since it will take a lot of effort to get folks on there and using it.
Current state: we get a heads up by email maybe a day before our meeting about potential endorsements. Then at the meeting we are asked to vote. During election season this is really overwhelming with limited options for real participation. There's no way anyone has reviewed the strengths and weaknesses of every school board candidate etc in the one day or 1 hour before we vote.
I've worked with another membership org that used three online platforms to help with this kind of thing: A slack for informal dicussions, something called "discuss" which is an online platform that allows for longer/more formal conversation, and various voting apps for actually voting on issues.
I think for the group I'm in now, we'd need the simplest possible platform where we could post potential endorsements (both candidates and issues) in advance, and folks can weigh in on pros and cons before the meeting. Not sure if we'd actually do voting there, but we could do like straw polls.
So what platform would be best for this? Again, I need to emphasize this group includes folks from a wide range of educational and class backgrounds and ages, and so the simpler the better. Plus I'd like to pick ONE thing and stick to it, since it will take a lot of effort to get folks on there and using it.
One thing I've seen groups that do political endorsements use is just to open a Google Doc with sections for each race (or per-candidate sections for races like school board with lots of candidates). Everyone can do their research and type in their thoughts. You can use "suggest" mode so that everyone's additions are color-coded and tagged with their name. Questions and corrections can happen by typing more underneath or by adding a comment to the doc. The doc then becomes a starting point for the endorsement meeting (either in-person or shared on Zoom).
This is not nearly as fancy as loomio or another discussion platform, but "there's a document we all type in" is about as simple as it's going to get. As you figure out what does/doesn't work, you can add more structure to the doc as needed.
posted by zachlipton at 12:51 PM on January 31, 2021
This is not nearly as fancy as loomio or another discussion platform, but "there's a document we all type in" is about as simple as it's going to get. As you figure out what does/doesn't work, you can add more structure to the doc as needed.
posted by zachlipton at 12:51 PM on January 31, 2021
A lot of the features you need (email notifications, discussion forums, polls, video chat) are the same ones used in learning management systems.
I think you could also set up Slack or Microsoft Teams* for this as well.
*Disclaimer, I have heard multiple reports of Teams freezing on what I have inferred are lower end computers.
I do agree that a shared google doc is probably as simple as it gets...
posted by oceano at 12:59 PM on January 31, 2021
I think you could also set up Slack or Microsoft Teams* for this as well.
*Disclaimer, I have heard multiple reports of Teams freezing on what I have inferred are lower end computers.
I do agree that a shared google doc is probably as simple as it gets...
posted by oceano at 12:59 PM on January 31, 2021
This thread is closed to new comments.
posted by Susan PG at 9:23 AM on January 31, 2021