In an election marked by major errors and a rerun scheduled totake place next week, Barbara Evans of the Office of ComputingServices brought the Student Senate good news Wednesday night aboutvoter turnout in the Student Government fall elections.
Evans told the Senate that voter participation was up 350percent this election.
Devin Reid, SG commissioner of Elections, said 4,733 studentsvoted in last Wednesday’s election. He said only about 1,000students typically vote in fall elections.
Reid said he thinks the new capabilities allowing students tovote from any computer via PAWS may account for the extremeincrease in voter participation.
But the news is bittersweet.
Because of a computer error, Evans announced Tuesday that 179part-time students were allowed to vote in last Wednesday’selection. Full-time students only are allowed to vote.
The SG Election Board decided to throw out all the electionresults and rerun the election next Monday.
The part-time student error was the second of the election.
Reid said he discovered the first error, which denied theballots of any student that tried to vote “no” on thenewspaper initiative referendum, on the day of the election.
From 8 a.m. to 11 a.m. on Oct. 27, students that tried to vote”no” on the $1 fee increase initiative for daily campusnewspapers were not able to submit their ballot and their computerscreen turned blank.
SG was planning on letting the students that were denied orsimply forgot to vote the chance to do so on Wednesday, Nov. 3 from8 a.m. to 11 a.m.
Reid said he is preparing for two possibilities regarding voterparticipation in next Monday’s election rerun.
He said either people are frustrated and will not vote becauseof the complications, or more people will vote because of theincreased media attention.
Reid said he hopes the latter takes place on Monday.
“It’s so easy to vote now,” he said. “Wedon’t think it will be as big of a factor.”
Jenny Byrd, SG Vice-President, said she is glad the ElectionBoard worked out all the problems, and is excited about theincreased student participation.
“I can’t wait to see what the spring willhold,” Byrd said.
Byrd and Reid said spring elections usually have a much higherturnout than fall.
“If we continue with this trend, 11,000 to 12,000[students] will vote in spring,” Reid said.