Students who waited in line to vote in the Student Government general election on April 2 for more than 30 minutes all had one question — why can’t they do this from their home computer?
Fall 2002 marked the first election for students to cast their votes electronically through their PAWS desktops at designated computers on campus.
While this spring’s election saw a significant increase in voter turnout, many still feel the numbers do not accurately represent the student body.
The Student Senate voted during their Feb. 5 meeting to form a commission to discuss the possibility of moving to an online voting system. This would allow students to vote from any computer through their PAWS accounts. The commission voted unanimously to recommend the system to the Senate.
Sens. Melody Wells, Michelle Gieg and Katherine Nolen proposed a bill to amend the election code and allow online voting to the Senate on April 2. The bill will come up for debate and a possible vote during their April 23 meeting.
“I think it’s an important outreach to students,” Wells said. “This is a more tangible step to help them get involved. The more people who vote, the more credibility we will have. It’s very hard for us to accurately represent our constituents if not enough people are voting.”
Guy Pyrzak, SG director of information technology, said the online system would ensure security by asking each voter for their PAWS ID, logon name, social security number and Tiger Card ID number.
Pyrzak said the system is easy, free and convenient. He said the system also is what students want.
In a random survey Pyrzak conducted on the general elections day, about 250 out of 300 students said they would prefer to have the capability to vote from any computer with Internet access.
Another benefit would be the ability to extend the voting period, Pyrzak said. If problems arose, such as the University canceling classes or SG deciding it wanted to, SG could extend the voting period to several days.
Despite the list of benefits, many people said they have concerns about the security of the proposed system.
Wells said the main concern for most people is “organizational voter fraud.” She said students may either voluntarily or by force give up their PAWS ID, password, social security number and any other necessary information so a member of an organization can log on as someone else to cast a vote for them.
Senator and vice president-elect Jason Wesley said he is cautious about making a quick jump to online voting because he wants to make sure the elections remain fair.
“The No. 1 goal should be the integrity of our election, not just increasing the numbers,” Wesley said.
Besides his concern about organizational group voting, Wesley said he also is worried about monitored voting where group leaders watch each of their members vote.
Wesley also said he wants to ensure that the election result is reflective of students who care about the issues and not simply those who happen to log on to PAWS.
Pyrzak said the biggest concern surrounding voter fraud involves potential for group voting within the Greek community.
Sen. Michael Busada said his concerns about online voting lie in the need for a new election code.
“I’m all for online voting,” Busada said. “I think the students want it. But, the plan right now is to rewrite the election code. This needs to be done before we move to an online voting system.”
Busada said he would like to see a move to the proposed system, but he does not want SG to rush into it until the new code is in place.
Sens. Wells, Gieg and Nolen proposed a bill on April 2 to rewrite the election code, but the earliest a new code could go into effect is spring 2004.
Wesley and Busada said they have no problems with the technical aspect of the new system or the commission’s research, but they are concerned with the system’s integrity.
Both will present their arguments at the next senate meeting.
Several other universities’ SG associations have moved to similar online voting systems.
Becky Carreon, SG administrative assistant at the University of Texas at Austin, said they recently completed the first election using the new system.
“We used to use a telephone voting system,” Carreon said. “It was time consuming; such a hassle. Now you can just vote anywhere. Convenience is very important to voter turnout.”
Carreon said they had 4,118 out of 50,616 students vote in their spring 2002 election using the old system and 10,940 out of 52,672 this spring.
The increase in turnout improves the validity of SG, Carreon said. The impressive numbers overshadowed their concerns about security.
Wesley said he has spoken to SG members from the University of Maryland who have been skeptical about their own online voting system.
Wesley said UM’s SG has experienced several problems with organizational voter fraud. However, the Reveille was unable to get in touch with UM’s SG officials.