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Student Senate's electronic vote sees more than 10 percent turnout
But French says a few glitches need work
Nicole Strittmater
Issue date: 2/11/08 Section: News
The number of students that participated in Tuesday's online Student Senate special election exceeded members' expectations, President Ray French said.
With a total of 1,110 responses out of the 10,593 students on campus, the election had a 10.5 percent turnout.
"That just shows the effectiveness of online voting," French said. "I think we've demonstrated how much easier it is to use online voting and how much better of a response we will get."
Students voted to accept or reject a newly proposed amendment to the Student Body Constitution on whether to change Senate election dates and terms of office from the first or second week of March to mid-April.
The amendment passed 940-170 and the changes will take effect immediately.
But French said there was one glitch in the voting process.
For every vote cast, he received an e-mail notification, which kept the voter anonymous, and the number of e-mail responses didn't correspond with the totals received from the WebSurvey system, he said. Senate received 1,134 e-mails and the system only counted 1,110.
French said he spent a few days going through every e-mail and identified the 24 not counted by the system.
Users probably clicked on the 'submit' button more than once in the majority of cases, because the times were very similar, he said. The vote only registered once, but he received an e-mail for every time they clicked.
But in six or seven cases, the times were different, he said.
Senate is waiting to hear from the WebSurvey system to determine what votes are legitimate.
"This was a good learning opportunity for us, but it's also a little frustration," he said. "Even if there had been one e-mail that wasn't counted that still would have been unacceptable. This has to be foolproof for it to be a success."
The outcome of the election, however, is not in question.
"Either way, the vote was overwhelmingly 'yes'," French said.
With a total of 1,110 responses out of the 10,593 students on campus, the election had a 10.5 percent turnout.
"That just shows the effectiveness of online voting," French said. "I think we've demonstrated how much easier it is to use online voting and how much better of a response we will get."
Students voted to accept or reject a newly proposed amendment to the Student Body Constitution on whether to change Senate election dates and terms of office from the first or second week of March to mid-April.
The amendment passed 940-170 and the changes will take effect immediately.
But French said there was one glitch in the voting process.
For every vote cast, he received an e-mail notification, which kept the voter anonymous, and the number of e-mail responses didn't correspond with the totals received from the WebSurvey system, he said. Senate received 1,134 e-mails and the system only counted 1,110.
French said he spent a few days going through every e-mail and identified the 24 not counted by the system.
Users probably clicked on the 'submit' button more than once in the majority of cases, because the times were very similar, he said. The vote only registered once, but he received an e-mail for every time they clicked.
But in six or seven cases, the times were different, he said.
Senate is waiting to hear from the WebSurvey system to determine what votes are legitimate.
"This was a good learning opportunity for us, but it's also a little frustration," he said. "Even if there had been one e-mail that wasn't counted that still would have been unacceptable. This has to be foolproof for it to be a success."
The outcome of the election, however, is not in question.
"Either way, the vote was overwhelmingly 'yes'," French said.
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