[EM] Conducting preferential elections over the web

[David Catchpole]

Hi guys- I thought maybe you would be interested in a fairly non-labour-
intensive way of conducting preferential elections over the web using
webforms. This is a technique I just hit upon after a lot of near-misses-

(I) Establish a guestbook account with Dreambook (www.dreambook.com) or
another similar guestbook provider that allows you to alter and extend
your form questions.

(II) Nasty labour intensive bit- takes a few minutes to an hour or so
depending on the number of candidates or options- change your dreambook
account to incorporate a "code" field and as many other fields or even
more than the number of candidates or options. Remember the basic names
for the fields. Visit the guestbook you have created and view the
source... take notice of the reference to <FORM blah blah blah> because
this gives the URL you require for later on as well as the protocol for
sending, get or post (in the case of dreambook, post).


(III) Design your ballot form (Microsoft Word is OK... Make sure you've
got the document in html mode). Incorporate a "code" text box and drop
down boxes next to candidates' names with a choice amongst "_" and the
numbers 1 to however many candidates or options there are (a send button
is a good thing also). The fields associated with boxes should be those of
the guestbooks above. Make sure the form is constructed with the above URL
and protocol for sending in mind.

(IV) Test your ballot form. You don't need to upload it to the internet
yet- just run it from a local drive and do a test vote (make sure it will
be discernible from valid votes!). Then go to your guestbook management
and see if your vote has been registered as an entry. If it hasn't, it's
more than likely the URL and protocol for sending are wrong- go to the
original guestbook and view the source again. Copy the <FORM Blah Blah
Blah> bit and then open the source of your ballot form. Replace the <FORM
Blah Blah Blah> in your ballot with the one you have copied. See if it
works now.

(V) If everything works out, upload your ballot form to the web. Next, get
the list of voters and use a database or spreadsheet to give each voter a
unique code.

(VI) (A) (If you have outlook or another mail-mergy e-mail program) Mail
merge an invitation to vote which includes a voter's code and the URL of
the ballot form. Easy- but for those of us who slave along with pine or
eudora-

(B) Find out how your e-mail program saves e-mail messages (particularly
outbox or postponed) and mimic that in a merge to a text file through Word
or similar. Put the thing (using dos or ftp or whatever) into your outbox
or postponed-msgs folder and then run your e-mail program. Hopefully it
picks up a pile of individual messages to be sent. Send them.

Enjoy! Any comments?