Finding a Bloc STAR provider

Core Development
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For anyone who wants to try their own test election, and especially for @EWDurbin (he needs to try this), here are the steps I recommend. I hope I’ve left nothing material to imagination:

After you log in, click on your account and select New Election. A box pops up:

  • Poll or Election? Election

  • Title? e.g., PSF Steering Council - 2025 term

  • Restricted? Yes

    Fill in contact email address for election help

    • Would you like your election to be restricted to a pre-defined voter list? Yes.

  • Choose voters: click on Email List

The initial box vanishes then.

On your computer, create a text file of voters. This is in CSV format, although there are no commas involved The first line should be exactly (the word “email”):

email

Then one line for each voter’s email address:

their_email_address, like abc@xyz.ty

CAUTION: I had to remove the last newline in my file, else an “extra” voter got created with a senseless entry. Maybe because I’m on Windows, but the file was created with Unix line ends (plain newline, no carriage return),

On the far left, click on Voters.

  • Then click ADD VOTERS.
  • Check the Email box; leave the Voter ID box unchecked.
  • Click SELECT FILE near the bottom.
  • Navigate to your voter file on your machine, and select it.
  • A box with title “Voters” should appear, with one row per voter email address.

On the far left, click on ADMIN HOME.

Click on the pencil icon at the upper right of the top box.

  • Add a description, if you like.
  • Check the Enable Start/End Times? box.
  • Fill in Time Zone, Start Date, and End Date fields.
    – Note that AoE doesn’t appear to be a supported option.
  • Click SAVE.

Click on the pencil icon at the upper right of the Extra Settings box.

  • Check “Randomize Candidate Order”.
  • “Allow Voters To Edit Vote” is greyed out and not checked.
    – If it becomes available, check it.
  • Uncheck “Show Preliminary Results”.
  • “Enable Random Tie-Breakers” ia greyed out and checked.
    – If it becomes available, leave it checked.
  • “Enable Voter Groups” is greyed out and unchecked.
    – If it becomes available, leave it unchecked.
  • Uncheck “Customize Emails To Voters”,
    – Although I actually have no idea what it does.
  • Check “Confirm That Voter Read Instructions”.
  • Uncheck “Make Election Publicly Searchable”.
  • Uncheck “Set Number Of Rankings Allowed”.
  • Click SAVE.

Click ADD to the right of Races. This is the actual election :wink:

  • Fill in Title and Description boxes.
  • Select Basic Mutli-Winner radio button,
  • Enter 5 in the “Number of winners” box.
  • Under “Which voting Method?”, select “STAR voting”.
  • Fill in the candidates’ names, one per line.
  • Click SAVE.

Now you’re back to the admin page.

  • Click CAST BALLOT to the right of “Cast test ballot”.

    This doesn’t count as a real vote; it will be thrown away.

Go back to earlier steps as needed until everything looks right.

Click FINALIZE ELECTION. Nothing material can be changed again after this.

A “Send Email Blast” box pops up. If you’re ready to let voters know, click YES.

  • Click DRAFT EMAIL BLAST.
  • Select “Election Invitation Template”.
  • Alter the text as desired. It looked good to me as-is.
  • Click SEND EMAILS.

Take a vacation :smile:

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