Last year's race was so close we had to determine a tie for historians. We recounted votes several times, each time one of the candidates would win by one to two votes. So we finally said, "It's elementary school, it's not that serious, let's call it a tie and they both win." This year, I wondered if there would be an easier way to count the ballots. Google being my friend I decided to play with the thought of creating a ballot in Google forms, this way it would count the votes the two of us wouldn't have to do this! So, I created a mock ballot with a few names sent it out to teachers and asked them what they thought of the ballot. I got great feedback, one teacher suggested we add photographs of each student near their names, since some students don't share the same recess or lunch, they never get to know each other. What a great idea, but how would I get every student's picture in the form? I thought I'd just have teachers send me pictures. Then I started thinking about what would most likely happen, I'd get different sized pictures. Everyone knows that there are those teachers that we work with that are never on time, so I also envisioned not getting pictures in time for me to put in the form. It actually took me several days to brainstorm how I could get similar pictures of similar size in the form. Then I thought of it! We have our student attendance system which has pictures of all students, the problem was I only have access to my own students. So, I asked the school secretary if I could sit at her desk and access pictures to put in my Google form. That worked! I then shared the link with teachers and asked them to vote, to make sure it worked. No problem! Now the teachers just needed to share the link with students. Here's what students saw on their ballots:
As they scroll down the ballot they see the other offices and the candidates. Teachers were very pleased about how quick it was for students to vote. AND best of all no tallying of the votes! Teachers who use Google classroom added an assignment and put in the link I shared with them. IMPORTANT: Make sure in settings you choose, "Limit to 1 response". This will allow students to only vote one time.
When I was ready to view the results, it was so easy to get totals. I clicked on the response tab and here were the results all tallied for me.
If you'd like to see how I created this ballot watch this video and I will show you step by step.
