Judges eBallot Guide
As a judge, eBallots offers numerous benefits including being able to type out your feedback and not having to walk back to the judge's table to drop off & pick up your ballots. This may save you a lot of time and energy.
Check out a Sample eBallot to see the process live.
The process for filling our your eBallots can be explained in four steps:
Step 1 - Set your Ballot Preferences
The first step is to make sure your ballot preferences are set to either text or email. The director of forensics at your school can update this on the judge roster page. In order to change your preference from paper to text or email, they must have a valid email/phone for you to record on the website.
Step 2 - Accept your Ballot
As the tournament is preparing for a round, the tournament director will push out notifications for eBallots. This is a similar step to when they would place paper ballots out on a table for judges to pick up. You'll receive a notification either through text or email that you have been assigned a ballot.
The notification will include a link to forensicstournament.net This link contains a unique code that will let you view the ballot. In order for the tournament to know that your text/email is working and that you are aware that you have a ballot, please click the link ASAP. This will mark in the program that you have "picked up" your ballot so to speak.
Step 3 - View your Ballot
When it's time to start the round, click on the link again to view your eBallot. Depending on the type of event you have been assigned (individual events, debate events, etc) you will see your ballot on the website.
The eBallot will allow you to record the rank, rates, wins/losses, etc for your round. It will also contain sections for feedback for each student in the round. Additionally, in debate, it will have a section for a Reason for Decision, which all students in the round will be able to view.
Note that feedback is saved every 10 seconds or so automatically. If you accidentally close the browser or something happens to your device, just click on the link you received in your notification and you will be taken back to your ballot with the last saved draft loaded.
Step 4 - Confirm your Ballot
After completing your eBallot, click on the confirm ballot button to review your ballot before submitting it. If anything is amiss, click to return to the ballot to update it. Once everything looks good, click Submit ballot and you are all set. You will receive a confirmation that your ballot was successfully recorded.