A plan for digital voting at Benoni Baptist Church

Digital voting has been approved at the elders and deacons, and will now need to be proposed and ratified by the congregation before digital voting happens during a general meeting.

Before the meeting

1. Week of 25 October, and 1 November, send out email explaining the digital voting proposal, and requesting people scrub their own data.
2. Week of 8 November, and 15 November, scrutineers with physical print outs in lobby before and after the service, helping people scrub their data.

The week before the meeting

1. We will create a WhatsApp group for the meeting.
2. We will set the group permissions so that only admins can send messages.
3. We will pre-write every poll’s wording and options.
4. We will make Benoni Baptist Church guest WiFi available.

During the registration process before and after the service

1. When members arrive at church they sign in at the registration desk.
2. If their name is on the members roll, members will be asked to verify that their first name, surname, telephone number, and email address are correct.
3. During the registration process, any incorrect details will be updated on our Planning Center database.
4. During the registration process, members will be asked if they are able to vote by WhatsApp, and consent to be added to the WhatsApp group as per our POPI policy. Their choice will be indicated on the members roll.
5. If they will vote by WhatsApp, the scrutineers will add the member to a WhatsApp group using the telephone number on our Planning Center database.
6. If they will not vote by WhatsApp, the scrutineers will issue the member with a physical ballot.

Before each vote

1. Before each vote, we will create a poll in the WhatsApp group.
2. The only options available for a poll will be yes or no.
3. We turn off allow multiple answers.
4. We turn on hide voter names.
5. We will open the voting.
6. After 5 minutes we will close the poll.

During each vote

1. Scrutineers will be on hand to assist.

After each vote

1. After each vote, we will tally the physical ballots.
2. After each vote, we will capture the WhatsApp poll numbers.
3. We will add the paper totals to the WhatsApp totals.
4. We inform the congregation either at the meeting or via a message.