Many organizations have discovered that using a board portal which can be used for remote voting helps increase participation by members who cannot attend meetings in person. The process is more reliable and easier to organize. It also lets members vote from any place. There are some important factors to be aware of when you are voting remotely.
It is important to remember that email is not an appropriate medium for voting in private. Personal and business email accounts are low-hanging fruit for cybercriminals to hack and alter the outcome of an election. This could result in an invalid vote. This type of manipulation would be extremely difficult to identify and prove without a highly-secure system like the board portal used by a variety of organizations.
A vote that is sent via email could not reflect the actual intention of the person casting the vote. If a voter responds to an email, they are able to pick from a variety of responses that range from simply a yes or a no to a lengthy paragraph outlining their opinion on the issue. This can make it difficult for other voters to understand or even confuse and lead to a muddled result of the vote.
It is important that any business considering electronic voting has a stringent policy in place. Before any remote voting can take place it is crucial that every member is trained on how to use the voting software used by the organization.