CU*Answers announced today that it will be offering an electronic voting option for this year’s Board of Directors election. In addition to voting in person at the annual Stockholders Meeting to be held on June 19, 2013, owners will be able to cast their vote using an electronic process facilitated by partner organization eDOC Innovations, which provides a full suite of electronic document and imaging options for credit unions.

Based on the organization’s bylaws, the first step in the process is to obtain electronic consent from all CU*Answers owners to receive election details electronically. Once consent is received, official ballots will be sent to registered owners via the same electronic channel.

While e-voting will be a convenience for CU*Answers owners, the other motivation behind the new initiative is to introduce clients to the eDOC e-signing process, which is also being used for remote capture of signatures on loan closing documents and other purposes by several CU*Answers clients.

In addition, CU*Answers offers an online voting mechanism for members to vote in their credit union’s annual meetings, so e-voting for its own owners was a logical next step. “Even if the details of how votes are collected aren’t the same, we know we can learn a lot from the exercise of organizing and processing an electronic ballot. We’re learning a new skill for our cooperative that can translate to a new skill for credit unions as well,” said Dawn Moore, VP Writing Team/Product Design.