Returning Officer Services

Maintain Normality and Avoid Election Stress.

2019 saw the release of our new Board Elections Manager tool. Over 280 schools signed up to hold their School Board Elections online in 2019. It was great to have the opportunity to pioneer something that made such a positive impact on our schools and their elections.

The portal allows schools to keep track of every step of their Election process, with their Returning Officer having access to review and accept nominations for candidacy.

To see the Elections Manager in action, please see the attached video.

Visit the Election Manager site >
Mid Term Elections 2023 >

Use CES to run your election

Let CES do the work for you

CES will undertake the entire election process for you. No more staff photocopying papers, incurring mail costs on behalf of the school, etc. We will make the process seamless with a complete understanding of how School Board elections work.

We always work in conjunction with your School and using our new technology we start with setting up an individual school website to receive nominations.

You are able to see into this and view the status of your election.

You can view how many nominations have been approved, how many nominations are still pending, and how many nominations are required for a Board to be formed.

You can download candidate statements for use in School newsletters etc.

CES fundamentally understands the School Board election process having undertaken over 1000 elections for schools over the last ten years.  Our new School Elections Manager is an invaluable tool that will ensure your school and community run a problem-free election process, allowing you to see into the entire process. Please don’t hesitate to contact us for further details. As always, we are here for you and we will guide you through the process every step of the way

Want to run your own online election using the Election Manager?

CES will set your school up with a unique website for the election process

CES fundamentally understands the school Board election process having undertaken over 1000 elections for schools over the last ten years.  Our new School Elections Manager is an invaluable tool that will ensure your school and community run a problem-free election process, allowing you to manage the entire process yourselves.

After you have logged into your Elections Dashboard you will be able to download your Returning Officer user guide for the School Elections Manager. The guide outlines everything you need to know with simple step-by-step instructions and illustrations.

From the School Election Website, you can personalise, then download and print candidate cover letters and nomination forms. The candidates will be directed to the School Elections Website to enter their candidate information, profile and photo. You will be able to see this process every step of the way.

You will be responsible for reviewing and approving or declining nominations that are submitted.  The website allows you to review nominations as soon as they are submitted by the candidate.

After nominations close, the website will produce a final result.  You will be responsible for updating the election results on the website.

If you have exactly the right number of candidates to fill the BOT spaces, you will not need to run a vote and you can proceed with publishing the election results. You can download a results advertisement from the website to be sent to a community publication.

Also available to download is an Elected Candidates letter which can be sent to candidates.

If you have more candidates than BOT places available and you need to proceed with a vote, you can download the standard approved voting paper and a candidate statement document.  The website automatically collates all the approved candidate’s statements into one alphabetical, downloadable document to be used to accompany your school’s voting paper which you will personalize and send to your school community.

After voting is completed you will enter the voting results against each candidate. Again, the website will allow you to publish the election results both for the community and for candidates. Candidates can also see the results of the election on the election website.

Please don’t hesitate to contact us for further details. As always, we are here for you and we will guide you through the process every step of the way.

Services include:

Prepare a timeline for the election;

Call for nominations by distributing the notice and nomination forms;

Prepare newspaper advertisements and flyers for circulation

Prepare rolls of parents/caregivers and staff;

Liaise with staff eligible to be on both staff and parent roles;

Distribute voting papers and reply envelopes;

Oversight of the electoral process;

Declare and advertise the results, notify the school and candidates;

Complete documentation for the Ministry of Education;

File results with the District Court.

WHAT OUR CLIENTS SAY ABOUT US

“As a new Principal, I've found your service incredibly helpful. Our community has commented about the benefits of having CES as the returning officer also. They have felt reassured that the process has been transparent.”

Brenda Martin, PrincipalWesley Primary School

“Well done Wayne on a great job accomplished. I can say that as a first timer having anything to do with BOT elections the help I received to any questions I had were prompt and most helpful. Thanks for all your hard work. I appreciate it.”

Debbie Eddington, HR & Personal Assistant to PrincipalLinwood College

“I would like to say that I found your assistance fantastic for any questions that I had, and really felt like I had very little to do as it was all so perfectly run at your end. So a huge thank you to you and your team from me - I know the next time I have a BoT election I won't need to be concerned at all.”

Michele Stephens, Principal's PASt Martins School

“I would like to thank you and your CES Staff for having done such a great job with our BOT election. This is the second time we have contracted CES to be the returning officer.”

Raewyn OpenshawElim Christian College

“Just a note to thank you on behalf of the Board, for working with us again as our Returning Officer for the BOT Elections. As in the past, you made it a very easy process for us with your regular communications with information and up-dates, prior to and during the elections.”

Shirley M Irving, BursarKedgley Intermediate School

“Thanks to you Wayne and your team and Kurt for your patience and time. Much appreciated.”

Sarah ColdhamWesley Primary School

“Thanks for your services for this election.
I felt the service provided was great, clear and timely, and the portal worked well also.
We would certainly use your company again.”

Steve WheelerPrincipal St Patrick's School

“Thank you all so much for being our returning officer again this year.  I felt the process was really informative and very smooth.”

Ellie Bramwell , Office WizardStonefields

“Just wanted to a big thank you to you and your staff for the efficient way and all the work you have put into the BOT elections.”

Fran Bowerman, Office ManagerWillow Park School

“Just a quick email to say “Thank You” to you and your team for the fantastic job you did with this year’s elections. I have completed the survey.
Looking forward to working again with you in another 3 years!”

Gina James, AdministratorSancta Maria Catholic Primary School

“I would firstly like to thank you for all the work you did around the elections for the school. It was well managed even though the dates were tricky with the postage issues. We appreciated not having to do it ourselves and the service you provide is really helpful in a busy school.”

Louise Bray-Burns , PrincipalEvans Bay Intermediate

“Your communication was excellent.  Thank you for being our Returning Officer.”

ChrisSt Catherine's College

“Thank you for your hard work in handling the election process for us, it went very smoothly indeed.”

Sarah-JaneMerrin School

“I would personally like to take the time to thank you and Kurt, you both have been exceptional the whole step of the way in helping and guiding me and my questions.
I have thoroughly enjoyed working with you both.and well done for all the hard work involved in running the elections.”

Pauline Thomson, Office ManagerMount Albert Primary School

“I really loved being able to use the portal. It was great to see what was going on and made things much easier. Thanks a lot of everything.”

Robyn EdwardsParkside School

“Thank you Wayne. I found you very friendly and extremely helpful!”

Kathleen StricklandSutton Park School

“Huge thanks Wayne to you and your team especially from us here at Chanel as we did have a lot of issues which you sorted really well.”

Viv MacArthur, AdministrationChanel College

“Our many thanks in helping us achieve a great outcome for this year’s election. Took me a while to get my head around it, but eventually got there with Kurt’s help and yours too of course. Too much information kind of makes my brain swim but we got there. Our Principal is really keen on going fully digital next time.
He passes on his thanks and regards.
Once again a huge thank you for a successful outcome for our school.”

Erina Thomsen, Office AdministratorHeretaunga Intermediate School

“As I mentioned before I found the whole process very smooth. We did consult the portal often and after initial teething problems as we learnt how to use it everything went fine.

I agree that internet voting is the way to go and hope that will happen before the next election round.

Thanks very much for your support.”

Helen Wassenaar, AdministratorJireh Christian School