Secret Votes & Ballots

This article covers all aspects of secret voting in Meeting Hub. The icon for Meeting Hub may be located on your StrataMax Desktop or found using the StrataMax Search.

The secret voting functionality in Meeting Hub provides strong controls to protect anonymity, and enhances meeting-day workflows, reporting, and returning officer management.

Secret Votes/Ballots Video

This recording of the Secret Voting webinar shows how to configure secret votes, manage Returning Officers, maintain voter anonymity, and administer voting outcomes. It also covers details about attendee eligibility, reporting updates, and new meeting documentation features.

Important Information about Secret Votes/Ballots

This section contains general information about the behaviours, features, and scope of Secret Votes/Ballots in Meeting Hub.

The Secret Vote option can be enabled for the following types of motions:

• Motion
• Motion with alternatives
• Vote on options only
• Same-Issue motions
• ‘Secret Ballot’ will be used for committee elections

The Secret Vote or Secret Ballot tick box in a motion cannot be changed if the motion has received any votes. Also, while minor amendments can be made to Secret Vote/Ballot motions, they cannot be amended when a meeting is in one the following statuses:

• Notice Issued
• Reconvened Meeting
• Meeting in Progress
• Meeting Held
• Minutes Issued

A Secret Vote/Ballot motion is identified with a secret voting message or the text ‘By Secret Vote’ or ‘By Secret Ballot’ throughout Meeting Hub and VoteMax. Any totals that might disclose an individual’s vote are replaced with the text ‘By Secret Vote’ or ‘By Secret Ballot’. This ensures secret votes will remain anonymous to the Strata Manager and Returning Officer.

To ensure the anonymity of voters, pre-meeting and in-meeting votes for secret vote or secret ballot motions are unable to be captured per attendee in Meeting Hub or VoteMax.

Strata Managers entering pre-meeting votes via the Meeting Attendee Vote Details screen will be unable to add voting responses for secret votes or secret ballots. Voting buttons are not available and the text ‘By Secret Vote’ or ‘By Secret Ballot’ are visible.

Enable Secret Vote in a Motion

Once the ‘Secret Vote’ or ‘Secret Ballot’ tick box has been selected, a secret voting message can be entered, which will be used to identify secret votes or secret ballots throughout the Meeting Hub, VoteMax and during document generation.

There will also be a tick box for Motion requires returning officer, which when ticked, will also tick the Meeting requires returning officer box in the 'Meeting Details' screen, after the meeting has been created. Refer to the Returning Officer Management section of this article for in-depth information about adding and managing returning officers in Meeting Hub.

Enabling Secret Vote in a Standard Motion

Enable Secret Voting in VoteMax

To support secret voting in VoteMax, Meeting Hub has an ‘Enable Secret Voting’ in VoteMax setting for eligible general meetings.

This setting can be selected during the Meeting Creation process when the manager is first configuring VoteMax voting for the meeting. It can also be reviewed or updated later via the VoteMax Settings on the Meeting Details page.

Meeting Hub also contains validation that alerts managers where the meeting’s secret voting configuration does not align with the motions in the agenda. This notification will appear in the Meeting Details page when the meeting status is updated to Notice Issued.

Add Secret Voting Paper to the Meeting Notice

Whilst in the Meeting Details screen, before generating the meeting notice/voting paper, check the Template Group section at the bottom to ensure it includes an Optional Secret Voting Paper. If not, simply click the blue Add button to locate and select it. It is strongly recommended, for presentation purposes of the meeting notice pack, to place the Optional Secret Voting Paper at the bottom of the list.

Returning Officer Management

This section covers all aspects of managing Returning Officers in Meeting Hub, including how to create their user account so they can access Meeting Hub, adding Returning Officer details to Meeting Hub, and more.

The purpose of giving an independent Returning Officer access to Meeting Hub is so they can check voting eligibility and manage the count for secret votes and secret ballots. The returning officer gets their own StrataMax user with Meeting Hub access and uses Meeting Hub in a web browser. They are not given remote access to StrataMax itself.

Building permissions in Security Setup do not apply to Meeting Hub yet. A Returning Officer can see the meetings for all buildings, not only the one they are appointed to. Access can be revoked as soon as the meeting is finished if necessary.

Grant Access for a Returning Officer to Meeting Hub

In order for a Returning Officer to access Meeting Hub, they will need to be set up as a Meeting Hub user with Standard Privileges. This is so Returning Officers can check meeting attendee details, including their eligibility to vote. Please refer to Set Up Access to Meeting Hub for detailed guidance.

A few details to note when setting up Returning Officers:

• It is recommended to set up a User Group in Security Setup, so that multiple Returning Officers can be set up and added to that group. This makes managing the Returning Officer users easier to manage with access permissions.
• Any new users that are set up in Security Setup are automatically added to the Users group, so it is recommended to remove any Returning Officer accounts from this group.
• It is recommended to produce an export of the Returning Officer's User Group to review the access and permissions of the group members.
• Returning Officers only need Standard Privileges for Meeting Hub - StrataMax Owners Portal an StrataMax AI DocQuery should both be set to No Access.
• The e-mail address used for the Returning Officer's account must be unique and not already associated with any lot or property on the StrataMax Portal, so it is recommended to confirm this with each Returning Officer. It can also not be the same as an existing StrataMax user.
• It is recommended to provide this link to the Returning Officers, which guides them through navigating and using Meeting Hub: Returning Officer Guide.

Add a Returning Officer to a Meeting

To add a Returning Officer to a meeting in Meeting Hub, simply tick the Meeting requires returning officer box in the 'Standard Meeting Details' screen, or in the 'Meeting Details' screen after the meeting has been created. This box will already be ticked if the meeting contains a motion that has the Motion requires returning officer box already ticked.

The Returning Officer's details will need to be entered before generating the notice or progressing the meeting status to Notice Issued. If Returning Officers have been used previously, they can be selected from the Select Returning Officer drop-down menu.

Alternatively, click the New button to enter the details of a new Returning Officer. Note that the users that have been set up previously in Security Setup are not synced with Meeting Hub, so it's important to ensure that at least the email addresses are the same.

To change the details of an existing Returning Officer, click the Pencil button, change the details, and click Save.

Once a Returning Officer's details have been added, they are displayed throughout the meeting workflow where relevant, improving visibility during meeting preparation and review.

Motion Details in VoteMax

Meeting Overview Screen

Returning Officer Reporting

The Meeting Hub Returning Officer Report, together with the Aged Balance List/Report is emailed to the Returning Officer when the meeting status is first updated to Notice Issued and again 48 hours before the meeting is scheduled to commence, and finally the latest copy will be emailed 2 hours before the meeting is due to commence.

The Meeting Hub Returning Officer Report containing secret votes or secret ballots is based on the ‘Online Voting Register’ and will help the Returning Officer review motion details together with attendee voting eligibility, attendance method, voting method and financial status. For motions and ballots requiring secrecy, the report records that a vote has been declared without revealing the voter’s actual response.

Returning Officer Notification Email

Returning Officer Report

Managing Secret Votes

This section of the article provides information about managing Secret Vote/Ballot motions including how to change voter/attendee eligibility, collecting secret votes using Meeting Hub In-Meeting Management, and Secret Voting in VoteMax.

Attendee Secret Voting Eligibility

To manage attendees and their eligibility for Secret Votes, the meeting status must progress to Notice Issued so that the Meeting Overview and Attendance Register screen is accessible.

Once in this screen, the user can view and edit the attendee's details as well as their eligibility for Secret Votes. New attendees are marked as eligible for both open votes and secret votes by default, unless changed by the manager.

To do this, ensure the Manage Votes box is ticked, so that the Votes and Eligible for Secret Votes columns are visible.

The Meeting Hub Attendance Register with Manage Votes ticked.

If a voter/attendee needs to be excluded from Secret Votes, simply untick the box and select a Reason from the drop-down menu before confirming. If 'Other' is selected, type the relevant comments first before confirming.

Secret Vote Collection

To collect Secret Votes on motions in Meeting Hub, the meeting must have commenced, in order to access the In-Meeting Management screen where all motions outcomes are determined and the meeting can be closed.

When it is time to capture the votes for motions with Secret Votes, click the Show Votes button and the 'Lock Secret Votes prompt will appear to notify the user that secret vote responses from the attendees/voters. Note that this is permanent and cannot be undone, even if the meeting status is rolled back to a previous status, but the motion outcome can be overridden using the manual override function. 

When the 'Secret Vote Collection' screen appears, it displays vote counts for each applicable voting option, including votes received via VoteMax, votes entered in meeting, and total votes received.

The page also shows the number of votes collected compared to the number of attendees eligible to vote, helping users identify whether the expected number of secret votes has been captured.

Rejected votes are shown separately where a secret voting response has been received but cannot be included in the secret vote count. This may include votes from voters who have submitted a response but are not eligible to vote on the secret vote or secret ballot. Rejected votes are not included when determining the outcome.

Determining Outcome

Once secret vote collection is complete, the outcome can be finalised by selecting the Determine Outcome button. If the result is already known, managers can instead record the result using the Manually Enter Outcome button.

Mannually Enter Outcome