Who can run our credit union’s online election for us?

vote.direct can. It sells the managed service as well as the software: we build the ballot from your final slate, load and dedupe the member roster, draft and send the notices your adopted bylaws require, run the reminder cadence, answer the voters ourselves, watch quorum daily, close on the deadline in the notice, produce the tally, and hand your election tellers a result certificate with a hash-verifiable audit package. The published price is $199 for a digital election of up to 100 voters, platform fee included; larger member rosters are quoted on the same scope. If you would rather run it yourself from open, setup and launch alone is $99.

How much does it cost to have vote.direct run a credit union election?

$99 for setup and launch, where we hand you a live election and you run it from there. $199 for a full managed digital election of up to 100 voters, platform fee included. $199 plus $6.00 per mailed packet when members need paper — that is the round trip, so there is no separate postage line. Most credit unions have more members than that, so the usual answer is a quote, but it is built from those published numbers rather than a figure invented on the call. Running the software yourself starts at $4.99 per election and is quoted above 1,550 voters.

Who tallies the ballots — vote.direct or our election tellers?

Your election tellers. Appendix A to 12 CFR Part 701, Article V puts the count in the hands of tellers the credit union appoints, and buying a managed election does not move that. vote.direct runs the mechanics — credentials, ballots, deadlines, reminders — then closes the election and produces the frozen tally, the CSV results, the verification summary and the audit package. The tellers review that record and announce the result. We do not appoint your tellers and we do not stand in for them. Official bylaws: https://ncua.gov/files/bylaws/federal-credit-union-bylaws-2020.pdf

How far ahead do we have to book a managed credit union election?

Give us 10 days before ballots open, and more when packets are being mailed, because printing and delivery are the long pole. In practice the binding date is earlier than ours: nominations have to close, and the notice timing in your adopted bylaws has to be met, before a ballot can exist at all. Send us the annual meeting date, the roster size and whether you are federally or state chartered, and we will work the calendar backwards from it and tell you if it does not fit.

Does a managed election make our election comply with NCUA’s model bylaws?

No, and no vendor can honestly tell you otherwise. A federal credit union follows the election option in its own adopted bylaws; a state-chartered credit union has to check state law as well; and the notices, the nomination procedure, the election tellers and the legal review stay with the credit union. What a managed election does is run that procedure carefully and leave a record of it — who was eligible, how each voter was verified, when each ballot was accepted, what the tally was, and a result certificate with an audit package your tellers, your counsel and your examiners can read. The federal model procedures are in Appendix A to 12 CFR Part 701, Article V: https://ncua.gov/files/bylaws/federal-credit-union-bylaws-2020.pdf. NCUA's view on keeping the member ballot secret is here: https://ncua.gov/regulation-supervision/legal-opinions/2004/secrecy-member-ballot-federal-credit-union-elections

Managed election service

Credit Union Election Services, from $199

vote.direct runs credit union elections end to end — ballot build, member roster, notices, reminders, quorum monitoring, close, tally, and a result certificate with the audit package — from $199 for a digital election of up to 100 voters.

Board elections, bylaw amendments and merger votes. Your board keeps the nominating committee, the election tellers and the legal review; we do the work in between and hand the tellers a tally they can announce. Give us 10 days before ballots open.

Ask us to run it Or run it yourself

All managed elections · 5 out of 5 from 3 reviews on Capterra

A credit union building beside a three-step flow: credential check, ballot access, vote confirmation

What it costs to have us run it

Published prices, so a board can decide without sitting through a sales call. Every price includes the platform fee for an election of up to 100 voters; above that the same scope is quoted on your roster.

Service	Price	What it covers
Setup & Launch	$99	We build the ballot, load the roster, write and send the notices, and hand you a live election.
Full Managed Election	$199	Everything in Setup & Launch, then we run it: reminders, quorum, voter support, close, tally, certificate.
Managed + Mailed Packets	$199 plus $6.00 per packet	A full managed election where the members who need paper get a printed packet with a postage-paid return envelope, and their returned ballots land in the same tally.
Managed + Inspector of Elections	$499	A full managed election where vote.direct also serves as your inspector of elections — Colorado, Nevada, Florida, Texas and Arizona only.
Above 100 voters	Quoted	Same scope, priced on your member roster. Most credit unions land here, and the quote still starts from the published numbers above.

One row needs a footnote on a credit union page: an inspector of elections is a community-association role under state HOA and condo statutes, which is why we can serve as one in Colorado, Nevada, Florida, Texas and Arizona and never in California. It is not the federal credit union model’s role. A credit union election is overseen by the election tellers the credit union appoints.

What we do for a credit union election

The same scope we run for every managed election, read against a credit union's procedure. The last three rows are the honest half of the table: a managed election does not make vote.direct your nominating committee, your election tellers or your counsel.

Task	Who does it	What that means here
Ballot build	vote.direct	Built from the final slate once nominations close — the nominating committee’s candidates and anyone nominated by petition, in the order your bylaws set.
Roster load and dedupe	vote.direct	Your eligible-member export, deduped, carrying the member-name and account-number fields your adopted bylaws use to verify a voter.
Notice drafting and send	vote.direct	Meeting and election notices on the timing your bylaws require. You approve the wording before anything is sent to a member.
Reminder cadence	vote.direct	Reminders go only to members who have not voted yet, which is where late participation actually comes from.
Voter support inbox	vote.direct	Members write to us, not to your branch staff, when a ballot link does not open or a credential does not work.
Quorum monitoring	vote.direct	Daily participation measured against the threshold in your bylaws, reported to you, so the annual meeting is not the first time anyone knows.
Close and tally	vote.direct	We close on the deadline in the notice and produce the tally. Your election tellers review and announce it; we do not stand in for them.
Result certificate and audit package	vote.direct	A platform-issued result certificate, CSV results, a verification summary, and a hash-verifiable audit package for your retention policy.
Paper packets (optional)	vote.direct	The mail alternative for members without the device to vote electronically. Paper and online ballots are counted in one tally.
Inspector of elections (optional)	Either	An inspector of elections is a community-association role under state HOA and condo statutes, not the federal credit union model’s role. A credit union election is overseen by the election tellers you appoint.
Nominations and candidate statements	Your credit union	The nominating committee, the petition route, the deadlines and the candidate biographies stay with the credit union.
Legal review	Your credit union	Your counsel confirms the procedure against your charter type and adopted bylaws. vote.direct does not give legal advice.
Adopting election rules	Your credit union	The board adopts the election option and the rules; we run the election those rules describe.

Members around a credit union holding phones with ballots open on the screen

Members vote from whatever they already have. The ones who cannot get a printed packet instead, counted in the same tally.

What makes a credit union election different

A board election, a bylaw amendment and a merger vote are three different procedures with different notices and different approval thresholds, and all three sit inside a rule set the credit union adopted before we arrived. These are the constraints that decide how a managed credit union election is actually run.

Nominations finish before the ballot exists

The nomination procedures in the federal model bylaws — the nominating committee’s slate, members nominated by petition, the thresholds and the deadlines — run on the credit union’s calendar and are done before we build anything. We build the ballot from the final slate. A nomination step done wrong is not something a ballot can repair later.

The election tellers are yours

Appendix A, Article V puts the count in the hands of election tellers the credit union appoints. vote.direct runs the mechanics and hands those tellers the tally, the participation record and the audit package. It does not appoint them and does not replace them.

There has to be a way to vote without a device

Option A4 conditions an electronic election on an alternative mail ballot for members who do not have the necessary device. On a managed election that is a printed packet at $6.00 each — the packet out, the pre-paid return envelope back, and the handling when it arrives, so there is no separate postage line — counted in the same tally as the online ballots.

Verification is by member name and account number

Option A4’s conditions include verifying the voter’s name and account number, along with testing the system before it is used. The roster we load carries whichever identifiers your bylaws name. Email and SMS verification are included; assisted government-ID checks are $3.00 per checked voter and have to be arranged before ballots open.

Ballot secrecy is a question about controls

NCUA’s 2004 legal opinion treats secrecy of the member ballot as something controls can preserve — keeping interested parties from seeing how identified members voted. Choose Anonymous, which withholds the voter-to-ballot link from organizers, results and exports, or Sealed ballot, which stores no link to the voter at all. Sealed ballots cannot be changed after casting, show no running tally, and cannot be combined with mailed packets, because a paper ballot arriving later would have no member link to check.

Your charter type decides the rule set

A federal credit union follows the election option in its adopted bylaws; the federal model provisions are in Appendix A to 12 CFR Part 701, Article V, including the one-vote-per-member rule. A state-chartered credit union has to check state law as well. We run the procedure your documents describe — we do not decide which one applies to you.

Marked ballots stacking into layers of records behind a shield

What the tellers get at the end

The frozen tally, with participation measured against your quorum threshold
A platform-issued result certificate naming the election, the dates and the outcome
CSV results and a verification summary showing how each voter was checked
A hash-verifiable audit package of the election record for your retention policy

Records support your election procedure; they do not replace it. Software cannot make an election valid — your notices, your adopted bylaws, your election tellers and your counsel decide that.

Sources: the federal model election procedures are in Appendix A to 12 CFR Part 701, Article V — official federal credit union bylaws — and NCUA's 2004 legal opinion on secrecy of the member ballot. This is general information, not legal advice.

Pricing

What each managed service includes, in the order the work happens. Scope and price are agreed in writing before anything starts.

Setup & Launch

$99

We build the ballot, load the roster, write and send the notices, and hand you a live election.

We build the ballot from your notice, bylaws and candidate list
We load the roster, dedupe it, and flag the addresses that will bounce
We draft and send the notices your documents and state law require
We hand the election over to you at open

Platform flat-rate fee included, up to 100 voters. You run the election from open onward.

Full Managed Election

$199

Everything in Setup & Launch, then we run it: reminders, quorum, voter support, close, tally, certificate.

We build the ballot from your notice, bylaws and candidate list
We load the roster, dedupe it, and flag the addresses that will bounce
We draft and send the notices your documents and state law require
We run the reminder cadence to the members who have not voted
We answer the voters — the support inbox is ours, not your manager’s
We watch quorum daily and tell you early if it is not going to be met
We close the election, tally it, and issue the result certificate and audit package

A digital election — email and SMS ballots, no mailed packets — of up to 100 voters, platform flat-rate fee included. Give us 10 days before ballots open. Add packets below, or ask for a quote above 100 voters.

Managed + Mailed Packets

$199 plus $6.00 per packet

A full managed election where the members who need paper get a printed packet with a postage-paid return envelope, and their returned ballots land in the same tally.

We build the ballot from your notice, bylaws and candidate list
We load the roster, dedupe it, and flag the addresses that will bounce
We draft and send the notices your documents and state law require
We print, stuff and mail the ballot packets — first-class, tracked out of the mail house
Every packet carries a return envelope with the postage already paid, addressed to our neutral election address. The member drops it in a mailbox. They never buy a stamp.
We open the returns, record them, and count them in the same tally as the online ballots
We run the reminder cadence to the members who have not voted
We answer the voters — the support inbox is ours, not your manager’s
We watch quorum daily and tell you early if it is not going to be met
We close the election, tally it, and issue the result certificate and audit package

$6.00 per packet, charged on the packets actually mailed. The $6.00 covers the trip both ways: the packet out, and a return envelope that already has the postage paid on it, so the member never buys a stamp. There is no separate postage line on your invoice. A mailed ballot counts when it reaches our election address by the close date in your notice — received by, not postmarked by, so nobody has to adjudicate a smudged postmark after the count has started. We work backwards from your close date at kickoff and give you the mail-by date to print on the packet. Paper and online ballots are counted together.

Managed + Inspector of Elections

$499

A full managed election where vote.direct also serves as your inspector of elections — Colorado, Nevada, Florida, Texas and Arizona only.

We build the ballot from your notice, bylaws and candidate list
We load the roster, dedupe it, and flag the addresses that will bounce
We draft and send the notices your documents and state law require
We run the reminder cadence to the members who have not voted
We answer the voters — the support inbox is ours, not your manager’s
We watch quorum daily and tell you early if it is not going to be met
We close the election, tally it, and issue the result certificate and audit package
An appointed inspector confirms the roster before ballots go out, oversees the count, and signs the certification

Not available in California: Cal. Civ. Code §5110(b) bars a vendor under contract to the association from serving as inspector. We will help you find an independent one instead.

Or run it yourself on the platform

The software on its own is a flat fee per election, starting at $4.99. Email and SMS verification are included at every tier. Above 1,550 voters, talk to us.

Voters	Price per election
up to 50 voters	$4.99
51–100 voters	$9.99
101–200 voters	$19.99
201–550 voters	$39.99
551–1,550 voters	$79.99
Above 1,550	Talk to us

Full pricing, including add-ons · What the software does for credit unions

Questions boards ask before handing it over

6 questions

vote.direct can. It sells the managed service as well as the software: we build the ballot from your final slate, load and dedupe the member roster, draft and send the notices your adopted bylaws require, run the reminder cadence, answer the voters ourselves, watch quorum daily, close on the deadline in the notice, produce the tally, and hand your election tellers a result certificate with a hash-verifiable audit package. The published price is $199 for a digital election of up to 100 voters, platform fee included; larger member rosters are quoted on the same scope. If you would rather run it yourself from open, setup and launch alone is $99.
$99 for setup and launch, where we hand you a live election and you run it from there. $199 for a full managed digital election of up to 100 voters, platform fee included. $199 plus $6.00 per mailed packet when members need paper — that is the round trip, so there is no separate postage line. Most credit unions have more members than that, so the usual answer is a quote, but it is built from those published numbers rather than a figure invented on the call. Running the software yourself starts at $4.99 per election and is quoted above 1,550 voters.
Your election tellers. Appendix A to 12 CFR Part 701, Article V puts the count in the hands of tellers the credit union appoints, and buying a managed election does not move that. vote.direct runs the mechanics — credentials, ballots, deadlines, reminders — then closes the election and produces the frozen tally, the CSV results, the verification summary and the audit package. The tellers review that record and announce the result. We do not appoint your tellers and we do not stand in for them. Official bylaws: https://ncua.gov/files/bylaws/federal-credit-union-bylaws-2020.pdf
Give us 10 days before ballots open, and more when packets are being mailed, because printing and delivery are the long pole. In practice the binding date is earlier than ours: nominations have to close, and the notice timing in your adopted bylaws has to be met, before a ballot can exist at all. Send us the annual meeting date, the roster size and whether you are federally or state chartered, and we will work the calendar backwards from it and tell you if it does not fit.
They get paper, and that is not a courtesy — Option A4 in the federal model bylaws conditions an electronic election on an alternative mail ballot for members who do not have the necessary device. On a managed election we print, stuff and mail the packet with a pre-paid return envelope addressed to our neutral election address at $6.00 each, charged on what is actually mailed, and those returned ballots are counted in the same tally as the online ones. A mailed ballot counts when it reaches our election address by the close date in your notice — received by, not postmarked by, so nobody has to adjudicate a smudged postmark after the count has started. We work backwards from your close date at kickoff and give you the mail-by date to print on the packet. The one exception is sealed-ballot mode: it stores no link between the voter and the ballot, so a paper ballot arriving later has nothing to be checked against, and the two cannot be combined. Official bylaws: https://ncua.gov/files/bylaws/federal-credit-union-bylaws-2020.pdf
No, and no vendor can honestly tell you otherwise. A federal credit union follows the election option in its own adopted bylaws; a state-chartered credit union has to check state law as well; and the notices, the nomination procedure, the election tellers and the legal review stay with the credit union. What a managed election does is run that procedure carefully and leave a record of it — who was eligible, how each voter was verified, when each ballot was accepted, what the tally was, and a result certificate with an audit package your tellers, your counsel and your examiners can read. The federal model procedures are in Appendix A to 12 CFR Part 701, Article V: https://ncua.gov/files/bylaws/federal-credit-union-bylaws-2020.pdf. NCUA's view on keeping the member ballot secret is here: https://ncua.gov/regulation-supervision/legal-opinions/2004/secrecy-member-ballot-federal-credit-union-elections

Tell us the meeting date

Send the annual meeting date, the roster size and the charter type, and we will come back with the scope, the price and the calendar. 10 days before ballots open is the notice we need; more if packets are being mailed.

Start the conversation (512) 222-8191

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