Mr. Sciortino's online voting system gets discussed in the Daily Cal. The article doesn't go much into the specifics of the new system, which Mr. Sciortino has made available to the public. The site brings up the small matter of $20,000 saved on expenditure, something the article doesn't.

Using the Online system is prjected to save the ASUC over $20,000 a year on elections. Savings are made through not having to hire a neutral third party to monitor the polls, ballot counting, and ballot printing.

The main concern is how this will affect turnout, naturally. Forget the talk about fraud. This is about a method of voting that could drastically change who has an advantage in elections.

Citing voter fraud and the impossible task of regulating campaign restrictions near polling places, opponents of the bill said it would take convincing before offering support to this proposal.

ASUC rules prohibit candidates from campaigning within 100 feet of polling sites.

For those not familiar with the strategy behind ASUC voting, turnout is a remarkably large part of the outcome. Since the difference between winning a seat and losing it can be as small as five or six votes, very small differences in turnout become the key to victory. After all, every candidate is confident before the votes are counted that 250 people or so told him/her that they would vote him/her #1. But how many actually did? 75%? 68%? 25%? That's why walking people to polls, having a lot of volunteers, and collecting names and phone numbers are such a crucial role in winning. There's a story where former APPLE Senator Mokalla ran across two friends right before the polls closed on the last day of voting. He walked them to the polls, and won a seat the next day-- by two votes.

So imagine a change that raises some candidate's turnout by 20% or so automatically. Specifically, those many candidates who live and campaign in the dorms. Most of them lose due to low turnout by their hall. But now they can walk down the hall and get everybody who promised to vote for them to actually do it. There's nothing to it. Candidates in the Greek system, or Engineers, don't get this bonus as much if at all.

That's what I consider the real question mark about online voting-- and not a mark against it, mind. A system that will raise overall turnout and that students want must be implemented, regardless of if the distribution of benefits is uneven. There's a big question mark about how it will affect the composition of future Senates, and no one knows what it'll really be.Email This Post!