This manual provides assembly administrators with clear procedures for identifying and managing participants who appear in different capacities. Learn how to properly handle direct participants, proxy voters, representatives, and special circumstances according to your assembly's configuration.
As an assembly administrator using GoVote, one of your main responsibilities is ensuring that voting rights are properly assigned and exercised during the assembly. This guide will help you navigate various participant identification scenarios that may arise during onboarding and the assembly itself.
Proper identification management is essential for maintaining the integrity of your voting process and ensuring compliance with your organization's governance requirements. While the technical aspects of configuring your assembly are covered in other documentation, this guide focuses specifically on the practical aspects of identifying participants and managing representation scenarios.
Participant Invitation Fundamentals
Before addressing specific scenarios, it's important to be aware of some fundamental principles:
- All eligible voters should be invited to the assembly in advance through adding or importing participants, as well as publishing the assembly
- The voting rights in your assembly are granted to invited participants
- This guide focuses exclusively on managing existing voting rights, not creating new ones
- Your role as administrator is to ensure voting rights are exercised by the appropriate individuals
The scenarios described in this guide are focused on distributing and managing already-assigned voting rights. Creating new participants during an assembly is beyond the scope of this guide.
Understanding Representation Scenarios
Before addressing specific cases, familiarize yourself with the common representation scenarios you may encounter:
Direct Participation
The baseline scenario where invited participants represent themselves using their own invitation.
Proxy Voting
When an eligible voter transfers their voting rights to another eligible voter who is already invited to the same assembly.
Representative as Proxy Voter
When an eligible voter transfers their voting rights to someone who is not an eligible voter in the assembly.
Physical Voting
When a participant chooses to vote physically rather than digitally, requiring you to record their votes manually.
E-mail Replacement
When a participant needs to use a different e-mail address than the one originally invited.
Key System Rules and Constraints
When managing participants, be aware of these important system limitations:
- The system identifies participants by inviting them to the assembly, which provides them a unique access link
- A single proxy holder can represent a maximum of 3 principals
- Deletion of participants is only possible before an invitation is sent due to legal requirements for maintaining records of invited participants
- Deactivation and changes to physical voting status can happen after onboarding and assembly start
- Changes to physical voting status cannot happen while there are open ballots with active voting
Handling Participant Scenarios and Required Actions
1. Participant Unable to Access Their Invitation E-mail
E-mail is correct but inaccessible
When a participant arrives but cannot access their e-mail:
- Search for the participant in your participant list using their name
- Verify their identity using standard identification methods (e.g., ID card if required by your organization)
- Refer to the separate onboarding processes documentation for alternative onboarding methods not requiring e-mail access
Administrator Actions:
Go to Participants > Search for participant > Use alternative onboarding method as described in another manual
E-mail needs replacement (same person, new e-mail)
When a participant needs to use a different e-mail address:
- Verify this is truly the same eligible person, not an attempt to transfer voting rights to another individual
- Request identification to confirm the participant's identity
- Use the e-mail replacement feature to assign a new e-mail. An invitation will be automatically sent to the participant and they can continue their own onboarding
Administrator Actions:
Go to Participants > Search for participant > Click 'Replace e-mail' > Enter new e-mail address > Click confirm
Important: The e-mail replacement feature should only be used to update the e-mail of the same physical person, not to transfer voting rights to a different individual. Improper use of this feature may invalidate the legitimacy of your entire assembly.
2. Participation on Behalf of Another Person
Eligible voter representing another eligible voter
When a participant (who is already an eligible voter) arrives to vote on behalf of another eligible voter:
- Verify that your assembly settings allow participation by proxy
- Search for the principal (the person granting proxy) in the participant list
- Confirm if the principal has already appointed a proxy
- If no appointment exists, add this proxy to that principal participant by entering the full e-mail of the proxy representative
Administrator Actions:
Go to Participants > Search for participant > Click 'Representation' > Search for the proxy by name or e-mail in the search box > Click the result showing this proxy voter
Non-eligible representative representing an eligible voter
When someone who is not an eligible voter arrives to represent an eligible voter:
- Verify that your assembly settings allow representatives as proxy voters
- Search for the principal in the participant list
- Verify if the principal has already appointed a representative
- If no appointment exists and your settings allow, add this representative to that principal participant
Administrator Actions:
Go to Participants > Search for participant > Click 'Representation' > Enter the full representative e-mail address in the search field > Click the result showing 'Add this representative by e-mail'
Note: It's advised to let the participants handle their own proxy appointments in the system before the assembly.
Important: For proxy appointments created by you as an administrator, you should exercise additional caution in verifying the legitimacy of the representation. This may include requesting identification and possibly a written power of attorney if your organization's policies require it.
3. Proxy Limitation Scenarios
When a proposed proxy holder already represents the maximum of 3 principals:
- Explain the limitation to the participant
- Ask them to identify another potential proxy holder in the room
- If another suitable proxy is identified, create the appointment for this alternative proxy
- If no alternative is available and your settings allow, suggest appointing an external representative
Administrator Actions:
See the section above on how to create participation on behalf of others.
4. Physical Voting Preference Scenarios
When a participant prefers to vote physically rather than digitally:
- Verify the participant's identity as the eligible voter
- Mark them as voting physically in the system
- Explain the physical voting procedure that will be used (hand raising, paper ballot, etc.)
- Inform them that some physical voting methods may not provide the same level of secrecy as digital voting
Administrator Actions:
Go to Participants > Search for participant > Click 'Mark participant is voting physically'
Note: Physical voting can be set up or be reverted to digital voting at any time except during an active ballot.
5. Participant Replacement
When none of the above scenarios apply and a participant truly needs to be replaced you can do the following as a last resort which can only happen before the assembly is started:
- Identify the original participant in the system
- Deactivate the participant
- Add a new participant
Administrator Actions:
Go to Participants > Search for participant > Click 'Deactivate'
Add a new participant by e-mail.
Important: Adding a new participant is not possible once the assembly has started, so make sure this happens while onboarding participants.
Identity Verification Considerations
Standard Identification Practices
- In most cases, receipt of the invitation e-mail serves as sufficient identification because the participant can use the provided unique access link and no additional verification is typically needed - unless the assembly requires physical presence
Additional Verification Is Sometimes Necessary
- When appointing proxies or representatives on behalf of a principal
- When replacing e-mail addresses
- When deactivating and adding new participants
- For all scenarios where the administrator is making changes on behalf of a participant
Summary and Best Practices
Decision Considerations for Common Scenarios
- Is the person the invited eligible voter?
- Is the person in need of an e-mail replacement?
- Is the person representing another eligible voter?
- Is the person an external representative?
- Is the person better off using physical voting?
- Is it a case for deactivating the participant and adding another instead?
Pre-Assembly Preparation Recommendations
- Clearly communicate the rules for representation in advance by sending out a link to our provided guide
- Encourage participants to appoint proxies before the assembly
- Prepare your team for handling the common scenarios described in this manual
By following these guidelines, you'll be well-prepared to manage the various identification and representation scenarios that may arise during your assembly, ensuring a smooth onboarding process while maintaining the integrity of your voting procedures.