Online Voting using Choice Voting – A Case Study

As 2019 was ending, Bluefruit Software became employee owned.

Today, employees own 51% of the business through an Employee Ownership Trust (EOT). Our Founder and Director, Paul Massey, has already talked about why we formed an EOT.

BlueFruit Software decided to Elect candidates using Single Transferable Vote (STV)

BlueFruit Software decided to choose the two employee trustees using a fair election system. The method? The Single Transferable Vote (STV). They wanted to avoid the pitfalls of the more traditional “first past the post” system currently used in National elections. The Alternative Vote (AV) was discussed, but they realised that it wouldn’t deliver proportionate representation. Having colleague trustees who represented everyone was essential to us. So, they decided on STV.

To run the election with STV, BlueFruit Software decided to use online STV service Choice Voting. After testing it out and with some help from Choice Voting, we started our poll on 11th November 2019.

Over the course of four days, Bluefruit colleagues weighed their choices and sent in their votes. Everyone had the opportunity to rank in order of preference one or more of the candidates available. BlueFruit Software had a high voter turnout, with more than 75% of colleagues casting their votes.

Read the full article at BlueFruit Software blog