One of the signs of a civilized society is the establishment of governing bodies to set and enforce rules for communities.

A modern version of this is the neighborhood homeowners’ association, which has emerged from the suburban expansion of housing developments and condominiums during the late 20^th century.

While such neighborhoods usually fall under the purview of municipal governments, their often large and insular arrangements frequently require that they set up HOAs to manage smaller details of community life.
Along with establishing an HOA comes the need for residents to vote in periodic elections of officers and on issues that might arise related to the community. Historically, these situations have been handled using either a voice vote, show of hands or paper ballots. But what if your HOA represents a community of hundreds of homes? How do you ensure everyone gets a voice?

In addition, ensuring a quorum or generating interest in participating in such meetings in the first place is often a herculean task.
Using a wireless voting system paired with specialized audience response hardware can significantly ease many of the challenges associated with these meetings. Using software such as TownVOTE, HOA managers and boards can run more efficient meetings that residents will be happier about attending.

With the ability to handle up to 500 participants per single receiver, and the option to ‘string’ together multiple receivers to cover even larger audiences, electronic voting system can be used to keep track of speakers and the order in which they will be recognized, as well as document items up for a vote, amendments and the vote tally.

Participants can see the vote results immediately, and they can be exported to an Excel spreadsheet for documentation. Meanwhile, everything to be displayed is optimized for projection, which means that there’s no need for paper ballots and everyone in the room has the same information.