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SGA’s method of collecting votes online has proven to be faulty in the past few years

By Editorial Board on April 14, 2010 1:00 am in Editorial / 8 comments

 

Brittany Mouzourakis and Dave Breed won the Student Government Association Election and ­— along with it — inherited public scrutiny.

The voting Web site for SGA president and vice president shut down 12 hours early Sunday, evoking outcry for a recount from presidential challenger Evan Agnello.

SGA committee co-chairman Sean Howard shot down the request, saying the election results stand final.

Given SGA’s past history of elections, it’s no surprise this election was met with controversy.

The online voting process has proven faulty several times before. Coupled with low voter turnout, SGA has kept little credibility during voting season.

While we don’t think the issue skewed the election in Mouzourakis’ favor — voters couldn’t select her during those 12 hours, either — it is time to reorganize the voting process.

SGA should give students the opportunity to vote at manned booths in prominent public areas such as the Bovee University Center and the Charles V. Park Library.

Not only would this relieve the frustrations technology presents, but it also would help to put a face on the voting process.

Students may be more likely to vote if the opportunity to do so is right there as they walk by before or after class.

The voting booths could be staffed by SGA members who could actively work to answer questions about the voting process or SGA in general.

The debacle of this year’s online election has deja vu written all over it.

In 2006, the voting Web site vote.cmich.edu experienced a technical glitch at 12:30 a.m., which wasn’t discovered until 3 a.m.

The site closed the election 2 hours early.

The same problem happened in 2008, where — you guessed it — the Web site glitched and prevented people from voting.

If the voting mechanism has failed in the past, why does SGA continue to use this system?

Granted, the Web site malfunctioned this year during the last night of voting, while most students were sleeping.

But it doesn’t look good for SGA in the eyes of the students it serves.

Another problem with using the Internet to collect votes is that it doesn’t give the elections optimal promotion.

In 2008, a measly 1,722 students voted out of a student body of around 17,356.

In 2009, 2,081 students participated out of about 17,672 eligible voters.

This year echoed the same results, with 2,121 votes out of about 18,065 students.

For those keeping count, that is less than 10 percent of students on campus voting for their representatives in each of the past three years.

Clearly, the current way of collecting votes isn’t cutting it.

It’s painfully obvious SGA needs to change its tactics when it comes to elections — especially when a controversy such as this one is looming.

 

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  • Observer

    Funny… CM Life criticized SGA for using voting booths saying that they did not allow for a large part of the student body to be reached and cried for SGA to move to using the online system. The cyclical nature of life I guess.

  • John

    The problems of the website voting are very unfortunate but CM-Life is wrong to state that voter turnout with an online system is poor. SGA elections have averaged 2,000 and a couple years hit 3,000 voters with the online system. Before the online system, with in person voting, fewer than 1,000 students voted each year.

  • http://www.asgaonline.com Butch Oxendine

    Just because you run elections on-line does NOT mean you do away with visible polling locations across campus.

    In fact, the larger the institution, the more physical poll locations there should be.

    These “polls” must be visual– with signs about voting, photos and bios of the candidates, details on past student government accomplishments and projects.

    the polls can be staffed by volunteers from the local supervisor of elections office or from volunteers from the League of Women Voters. This relieves SGA members and advisors from having to sit at the polls.

    It would be wise to hire an outside professional elections company that runs SGA elections all the time. Some of them will put up a bond on the accuracy of the elections.

    These are just a couple of points on how to improve elections in your SGA. Your institution is not a member of the American Student Government Association, but should be. See http://www.asgaonline.com. We track elections strategies, lead workshops, and offer consulting to our nearly 1,000 member institutions nationwide.

  • http://www.asgaonline.com Butch Oxendine

    Incidentally, 10-15 percent turnout in SG elections at public institutions like CMU is the norm nationwide, according to ASGA's research (http://www.asgaonline.com).

  • Paul

    I realized another issue that low turnout creates, and that is that regardless of who you wanted to win or lose, if the student body does not vote, the administration will not be influence as much by SGA leadership since the low voter turnout shows the student body's inability to mobilize and do anything when problems occur. Just look at the tailgate issue last fall, people bitched then tailgated on Main St. If the students don't show the administration that they have to take our opinions into account, why should they listen to our representatives that have little support behind them on election day.

  • http://www.asgaonline.com Butch

    You're right, Paul! ASGA has developed a tool, the “SG Effectiveness Test.” #1 on the list that make up facets of a great student government: do you represent students. This starts with voter turnout in elections. If your turnout is 10%, that says 90 percent of your students don't care enough to even vote. So SG certainly can't claim to be the true voice of students. Administrators, faculty, staff and fellow students read about the low turnout and it harms your student government's image and hinders it from becoming a true advocate for student concerns. Long-term, SG should be working on strategies to increase involvement in campus elections and recruit more students to run for office. It must be a strategy and there must be a marketing plan and recruiting plan executed throughout the year to achieve real turnout improvement.

  • the machine

    “In 2008, a measly 1,722 students voted out of a student body of around 17,356.

    In 2009, 2,081 students participated out of about 17,672 eligible voters.

    This year echoed the same results, with 2,121 votes out of about 18,065 students.

    For those keeping count, that is less than 10 percent of students on campus voting for their representatives in each of the past three years.”

    For those who can't calculate percentages, such as the Editorial Board, that's over 11% in each of the past two years, and less than 0.1% under 10% three years ago.

    The lack of effort to fact check your conclusions against the very data you supply in the article doesn't instill much confidence in a reader that the rest of the editorial is anything other than lazy blather.

    Given CM Life's past history, it’s no surprise.

    Deja vu would involve a stealth edit of the article and a sloppy attempt to remove comments pointing out the error.

  • cemcneely

    While it is true that many students do not care enough to vote, I do not see the argument of apathy as being relevant whatsoever to SGA's ability to represent students.

    It is true that increased student involvement in SGA elections would certainly be a great development for the student populace in regards to engagement within University and student life. I would certainly like to see increased participation, and I believe it should and very well could be a project within SGA next year.

    However, the participation situation does not change the fact that the Student Body President and Vice President make student advocacy the major priority of SGA, spending hours upon hours representing the students at many different levels while simultaneously leading a strong organization which aims to do so, as well.

    SGA's strive for student advocacy has certainly been reflected under the Nichol/Mouzourakis administration throughout the 2009/2010 academic year, with successes such as the SOS results being placed online, an increase in the Campus programming fund, and the Lansing Blitz rally that advocated for increased higher education funding. These efforts, which have created an impact both at CMU but also externally, will continue in SGA next year, regardless of the “low voter turnout” you have criticized.

    While SGA will continue working to increase involvement in campus elections and within the organization itself, the notion you have posited that SGA leaders are hindered from being true advocates of the students, simply due to the elections involvement on behalf of the student body, lacks sufficient grounds; this is because SGA's chief concern has been and will continue to be student priorities and issues, whether or not many of them are involved in elections. SGA inherently fosters student leadership – whether or not you were a participant in SGA elections, we still want to know: what can we do for you?