Co-operatives and Mutuals Elections and AGMs 

Formerly known as Electoral Reform Services (ERS), we have worked on elections for co-operatives and mutuals for over 20 years. 

We understand that democracy is right at the heart of how co-operatives, mutuals and building societies function and make decisions. From elections to boards, councils or committees to voting at AGMs, we ensure members can take part in decision-making quickly, easily and securely. 

Similarly, we understand the statutory obligations of buildings societies and friendly societies, offering a wide range of time-critical services to support your policy holder votes, elections, AGMs, EGMs, SGMs, and member votes.

End-to-end support, unrivalled expertise

Civica Election Services provides end-to-end election management. As Independent Scrutineer, we ensure the integrity of the process and the result, whether you use traditional voting methods or digital solutions, or a blend of both. We help you drive engagement and maximise turnout through effective multi-channel communications tailored for your members.

For postal ballots, we support you from start to finish, delivering everything from design, print and mailing of voting materials to receipt and count of returned ballots or proxy voting forms for AGMs.

CESvotes offers a secure user friendly voting solution combined with features to help you engage voters and additional insights, including real time analytics and dynamic reporting.

Our dedicated team has unrivalled expertise and knowledge of managing elections for both co-operatives and mutuals. Uniquely, all our operations are in-house, assuring the security of your ballot, quick response times and turnaround, as well as significant cost savings. 

Supporting our customers with remote and virtual solutions

Our building society customers have been required to hold their AGMs during the Spring, facing unprecedented challenges due to the COVID-19 pandemic. Together, we provided virtual meetings and video streaming solutions to enable their members to participate at these meetings and ensure good governance and democratic decision-making could continue. 

Get in touch to discuss how we can support you.

Our services include:

• Returning Officer and Independent Scrutineer – we often act as both Independent Scrutineer and Returning Officer - for elections, proxy voting and attending in person for AGM, EGM or SGM voting
• Nomination management – online or by post
• Design, print and mailing – our secure in-house end-to-end services give you full control of the process, quick response times and turnaround, as well as significant cost savings
• Online voting and engagement platform – fast, easy to use and secure online voting for your members, with features to help drive engagement, promote your election and maximise turnout
• Digital strategy – helping you to transition from print-only elections, saving time and money 
• Customer service team - an experienced team to manage enquiries from your members.

We enjoy working with Civica Election Services (CES) and look forward to building on this progress. The CES team is pro-active with new ideas and constantly looks for ways to enhance the CESvotes system. So we can be confident our processes will keep pace with change, if not, be ahead of the curve.
Edward Parker, Secretary and Head of Governance – The Midcounties Co-operative