Testimonies
& True Stories

he SGB elections of March 2021 arrived faster than we anticipated. Much planning was done before the elections. This year was the first time that we decided to go the e-Mode. Votingcrowd’s details were given to us about two weeks before the elections.
Our elections took place on Monday, 29 March 2021. The day before (on a Sunday afternoon), I contacted Jaco because we did not send out usernames and passwords to our parents. We completed our voters roll on the Friday, 26 March – 3 days before our elections.
I was very anxious because of the many things that potentially could go wrong, but Jaco calmly assured me that everything would be alright once they received our voters roll. The 0% failure rate that he referred to was re-assuring. I was hugely impressed that the company was available on a Sunday afternoon.
On Monday, no electoral team members at school was needed to facilitate anything. Parents could vote from the comfort and safety of their homes. About five parents who popped in at school had not voted yet when we spoke to them. I made a laptop available for them and in no time their ballots were cast. They found the program very simple and easy to understand. The process took less than a minute. They raved about the advancement of technology which aided the election process.
It was nerve wrecking to watch how slowly the number of voters progressed throughout the day.
Teachers sent reminders to their parents to vote. When parents arrived home from work, the numbers started to flow. It was exciting to watch how the candidates performances influenced their positions from one minute to the next. I sent regular pics of the voters were voting. The SGB candidates were kept on the edge of their seats with the updates. Once a quorum was reached, I felt elated because it was the first time in more than 20 years that a quorum was achieved at our first election attempt. I firmly believe that this would not have been achieved had we gone the manual voting route. There were no parents who lodged disputes so I assume everyone was able to facilitate their way through the online process.
I will be advising other principals to go the e-mode because it takes away the many hours that other individuals would have had to take to verify, sort and count ballot papers.
What impressed me as well was the report that the system generated immediately when the voting period closed. I will definitely be using Votingcrowd again. You have made matters so easy and yet so exciting to watch online as the votes were coming in one by one.
I have no reservation in recommending Votingcrowd to assist schools with their SGB elections.

Once again, thank you from all at Fairview. May God bless you abundantly as you go from strength to strength.

K.H.Meyer (Principal)

Would like to take this opportunity to thank you for:
1) Always being available, whether email or mobile – this was so assuring to me as I was very nervous about the system;
2) Your calm manner when assisting this 61 one years old lady kept be calm and positive;
3) The system, as you told us in your training, was so user friendly;
4) Your staff always kept in contact and loaded the information correctly;
5) On voting day it was most exciting to finally see what the dashboard looked like – amazing;
6) Parents found it so easy to use.
I have been working at the school for 15 years and we have never had 32% of our parents vote, were had reached our quorum at 8:15 so there was great excitement.
We will definitely note vote any other way again and will use your program only.

Once again, thank you so much.

Trudi Mclachlan

A note of Gratitude for introducing me & Heathfield Primary to Jaco Pretorius and Voting Crowd. Jaco and his team with the support of SMSWEB was phenomenal. For the first time Heathfield Primary achieved a quorum with its first round of elections. By 15h00 today we reached our quorum and the support by Jaco and his team was outstanding. He fielded my numerous calls and queries, corrected parents contact details that was outdated and sent out additional credentials, giving parents the opportunity to be part of the process. The interface watching the elections unfolding was exciting. The fact that we already had people voting online and by 7h30 hosted parents who opted to use our 2 school based e-voting stations. Our SEO opening the elections at 7h00, checking in throughout the day, monitoring the elections from her office remotely. What a lovely process. What I can say is that Mrs Rustin of St Anthony’s Catholic school will next time use Voting Crowd. She loved the ease of the process.
Thanks once again for the introduction.

Branmal

Ons was een van die lootsskole wat die program vir die eerste keer uitgetoets het. Ook was ons die eerste skool wat ‘n VRL-bestuursverkiesing met die VotingCrowdApp gedoen het. Ons was gretige laboratoriummuise wat ons aan die toetse bloodgestel het, verseker verdien ons die koffiebeker.
Op ‘n ernstige noot. Ek kan net met groot lof praat van jul program en jul diens:
Dit is maklik om te gebruik,
User-friendly soos die engelsman sal sê,
Dit dui die loop van die verkiesing maklik en gerieflik aan deurentyd,
Omdat jy die heeltyd weet hoeveel mense al gestem het, kan jy ouers die heeltyd aanpor om te stem op sosiale media,
Jul video’s, instruksies en gebruiksaanwysings is goed geskryf, duidelik en maklik verstaanbaar.
Die personeel is vriendelik en hulpvaardig, en baie geduldig,
Reaksie op e-posse is vining, kort en beantwoord jou vrae duidelik,
Ure se tel van stemme, is iets van die verlede,
‘n Ure lange verkiesingsaande en gesukkel om ‘n kworum te kry, is iets van die verlede,
Tweede vekiesings is iets van die verlede.
Dit het ons gedwing om ons databasis van ons ouers beter saam te stel en aan te dring op volledige kontakbesonderhede,
Reaksie van ons leerders wat dit gebruik het:
Dit was maklik om te gebruik,
Dit was maklik verstaanbaar en gerieflik – Cool soos die kinders sê,
Dit was lekker om so te stem,
Ons wil weer so stem,
Dit was maklik om die App af te laai.
Hierdie was ‘n besondere moeilike verkiesingsjaar. Vertrou my as ek dit sê, want ek reël al vir die afgelope 8 jaar elke jaar een of twee verkiesings of tussen-verkieings. Elke keer moet ek ‘n tweede verkiesing reël omdat ek nie ‘n kworum kan kry nie en die hoeveelheid werk is dieselfde. Die enigste keer wat ons ‘n kworum kon kry, was toe ons soos hase agter die motors aangehardloop het om ouers se handtekeninge te kry. Nou sit ek in my kantoor en stuur boodskappe uit om die ouers op hoogte te hou en aan te por om te stem. Wat ‘n fees. Ek kan net vir my indink wat ‘n proses sou ‘n verkiesing waar jy 100 ouers moet hê, sou gewees het in COVID.
Baie dankie. Ek is baie beindruk met alles wat jul doen.

Mariet Oosthuysen

Ek wil namens myself, Elmien en Brandon en Frans du Toit Hoërskool vir jou en Votingcrowd so baie dankie sê vir die manier waarop julle ons al vanaf verlede jaar gehelp en bygestaan het. Einde verlede jaar het jy vir ons gehelp om die tussenverkiesing te doen en ons het niks betaal nie. Ons was ook die eerste skool in Limpopo wat elektronies gestem het! Toe die groot BL verkiesing naderkom het ons geweet dat ons verseker weer van julle diens sal gebruik maak. Toe Elmien vergeet om ons te registreer het jy ons kalm gehou en grappies gemaak. Jaco, baie dankie daarvoor. Dis ‘n ongelooflike maklike manier om ‘n verkiesing te hou en die een ander Laerskool in die dorp wat nie ‘n elektroniese verkiesing gehou het nie, het gesê dat hulle dit versker volgende keer gaan doen.
Jou / julle diens is uitstekend en julle is maklike en gemaklike mense om mee saam te werk. Baie dankie daarvoor. Sterkte met die pad vorentoe.

Estie Stander

Hi there! Meet Bob.

Bob is cute, but he isn’t really all that smart. Yet, Bob manages our election processes at school with VotingCrowd, because they have an awesome team. It’s easy peasy banana squeezy!

VotingCrowd has really made our election processes super easy to administer with an intuitive, no frills, no fuss, easy to understand and to navigate interface. It’s an absolute breeze to set up, schedule, run and continuously monitor our elections, with support for an electoral officer built-in. It virtually shreds unnecessary paperwork, cuts hours that would’ve been lost counting ballot papers (yep, Bob can only count to four), is really simple for eligible voter use, removes the guesswork at whether we attained a quorum or not for our current election (in real-time) and provides Bob with precious time to focus on other important stuff, like counting his toes (to see if they’re all still there) and groom his toenails to perfection if he chooses to do so, all while our election processes run without as much as a hitch. Bob has to do some work to ensure that voter and candidate details are correct and up to date – it’s a bit like filling a crate with fresh and juicy bananas often, or they might end up going bad and spoiling the entire bunch. The reporting is tidy and professional, while the audit trail included in the admin system makes it possible for a superuser to check in on Bob to see if he’s managing, actually working, or if he’s trying really hard to mess up. See, even if Bob wanted to mess up, he can’t really, because the admin system is tamper-proof. So, no monkey-business, nor tampering in the crates go unnoticed.

All of the staff on the VotingCrowd Team that we dealt with, are professional, friendly and response in terms of support requests are astonishing. It’s like having our own, dedicated support person on stand-by, just waiting for our call or our e-mail. We can now run any elections that we want, fully endorsed by the Department of Education, like our three-year SGB Elections, Interim SGB Elections, members for committees, our staff union representatives, student council, school library leaders, etc. Even Bob can manage it with the clear instructions and emergency toolkit provided by VotingCrowd!

A sincere and hearty thank you to everybody at VotingCrowd for making our lives so much simpler, and for saving us precious time for numerous, unscheduled coffee breaks, while Bob can literally go bananas!

Oranje greetings

Sarel JJ Klokow