Voting problems resolved

By Sue Potter, Director of Development, Tacoma/Pierce County Habitat for Humanity

Thank you to ALL who have been so diligent about voting in the American Home Shield (AHS) Challenge! On behalf of Tacoma/Pierce County Habitat for Humanity, please accept my sincere appreciation for your support of our upcoming Tillicum project. It has been extremely heartwarming and uplifting to see the community rally around this effort.

I am pleased to say that the vast majority of voting problems experienced in the beginning of this contest were resolved by AHS very quickly and there have been few if any major issues with voting since mid-October. BUT that said, there have been a few challenges that we have discovered through the duration of the contest. With this in mind, I would like to share some of the challenges and solutions that we have uncovered. This may be helpful to you as we reach the home stretch of the contest.

* WHEN I VOTED FOR THE FIRST TIME, I NEVER GOT AN E-MAIL ASKING ME TO VERIFY MY E-MAIL ADDRESS. If you are voting for the first time, American Home Shield will send you an e-mail right after you vote asking you to click a link, or cut and paste a link to your browser in order to verify your e-mail address and have your vote count. They do this in order to make sure folks are voting from valid e-mail addresses. If you do not see this e-mail from AHS in your inbox, please check your junk mail folder. Some computers think this message is spam and as a result divert the message to the junk file.

* I HAVE BEEN VOTING JUST FINE, BUT NOW THEY WANT ME TO RE-VERIFY MY E-MAIL ADDRESS. You have verified your vote in the past and suddenly you are getting messages that you need to re-verify your address. This could be one of two things… 1. You may have typed your e-mail address wrong and therefore the system did not recognize it as a returning voter or 2. It is very likely that some routine or automated maintenance has been done on your computer where cookies, and/or temporary internet files have been deleted. In this case, it is likely that your computer is no longer recognized by the voting system because the “cookie” is no longer there. Thus you have to re-verify to make it recognize you again.

* I HAVEN’T VOTED IN OVER 24 HOURS, BUT THE SYSTEM THINKS I HAVE. If you get a message that says “Sorry, only one vote per 24 hours”, but you haven’t voted in past 24+ hours, you may want to make sure someone is not voting on your behalf. Did you sign up for the Computer Clubhouse’s wonderful proxy service? Did someone else in your household vote for you?

* MY CHILD TRIED TO VOTE BUT THE VOTE WAS NOT ACCEPTED. You must be 18 or older to vote in this challenge. Some e-mail addresses are set up specifically for minor children. The system recognizes these accounts and will generally not accept the vote.

* OTHER. If other unusual problems arise, please feel free to send me an e-mail and I will do my best to help resolve your issue. My e-mail address is spotter@tpc-habitat.org.

THANK YOU AGAIN FOR YOUR VOTES! I am looking forward to celebrating Tillicum’s victory with you!