Keypad Registration and Collection

Keypad registration and collection may seem like an afterthought, but they're both essential to a smooth and efficient voting session. Here's how to ensure that your audience knows exactly what to do both before and after the meeting is over. 

1) Keypad Registration

When deciding where to register your participants, keep in mind the layout of your venue. Registration tables can be placed anywhere near the entrance to the voting area. If your meeting location has multiple entrances, set up a table near each entrance to distribute the keypads. Make an estimate of how many people will be participating to ensure that you have enough clickers for the event, then ensure that each registration table has a sufficient amount of keypads on-hand to distribute to your voters. Make sure the registration area is clearly visible; placing helpful signs and markers can help direct the flow of incoming voters and eliminate any confusion.

- Multiple PollPad registration stations at Rehobot's Annual Town Meeting greatly streamlined the processing of the registered voters.

- Seekonk is distributing the voting clickers at each of the stations. Residents go to the table that represents their district. This process can be simplified by only requiring that residents go to the table with their last name initial, like "M - S" for "Smith"

- Outdoor registration process may vary greatly, because of the precautions you need to take due to COVID-19 restrictions, or inclement weather preparedness. This photo from Westford shows the registration stations well spaced-out.

2) Keypad Collection

Participants may be in a hurry to leave as the event concludes, and it's not uncommon for some voters to accidentally bring their keypads with them. As a precautionary measure, it is helpful to announce at the beginning and end of the meeting for your participants to drop off their keypads in an area that you designate. Ideally, the drop-off area should be as close to the exit of your venue as possible. Many opt to simply place their keypad drop-off area right at the registration desk. Any type of container will be fine, as long as it is large enough to accommodate a large number of keypads. Similar to registration, it is very helpful to clearly mark the drop-off area with a sign or poster, and have attendants stationed at each drop-off area to ensure that nobody leaves with your keypads. 

- In Seekonk, there were 'keypad drop-off' bins available at each of the exits. After the photo was taken, signs above each bin, and a staff member directed anyone who was leaving to drop the clicker off there.

- In Orangeburg, SC at the 7th Day Adventist meeting, we had 1,100 attendees leave through many different door on each side of the building, so the unattended drop-off areas were critical to collect the keypads. It's a good idea to have the signs written in any prevalent language that your audience is known to understand.

- At the 2023 NAACP National Resolutions Plenary Session in Boston, we used clear signage and bins/baskets to collect the clickers:

- At the latest Seventh-Day Adventist Southwest Region Conference in Keene, TX, we used a multi-tier registration desk system so that every station only has to deal with around 100 participants. Since this was a multi-day event, the participants kept their keypads overnight, but signed them out, so that we know who was given which keypad number.