Daily Cal Weighs in on Online Voting, Lawsuit
Editorial: Student Suffrage First

After last week’s successful online referendum for the Safeguard fee, it’s high time ASUC set up a secure Internet-based system. And though Senator Ben Narodick’s proposal comes at an inopportune point, ASUC needs to immediately act on the bill, even if its changes won’t affect this year’s elections.

Thanks for the support! It hadn't occurred to me to try to push this bill through the Senate again, but that is a wonderful idea. Numerous Senators said during the debate over Online Voting Take 1 that they supported this for next year ("It's a good idea, there just isn't enough time..."), so it will be nice to see if they were serious, or-you know-lying...

Perhaps our resident political pranksters miss the subtle irony.

We miss no irony. Ever.

And the senator’s uncommon interest in restoring the ballot to EAP students’ apparently doesn’t apply if their vote is on paper—he rejected an amendment giving mail-in ballots to EAP students this year.

That's because without postponing the election it isn't feasible to mail ballots out to the far flung reaches of the EAP program and have them mailed back in time. Getting things to and from Vietnam can take nearly a month. We would have under three weeks in the current system, so passing a bill for paper ballots this election is only a way to get the Senate off the hook of maintaining an unconstitutional election system (as we argued). Furthermore, Ben didn't reject that ammendment, it was soundly defeated by the entire Senate.

In spite of the exquisitely terrible timing, this move had to be made sooner or later.

Umm, no you're exquisitely terrible... Or something.

It may not be viable to set up online voting so soon, so this year there should be download-able ballots for EAP students.

Yes! Granted, this decision is up to the Judicial Council at the moment, and I suspect that they will probably be ruling against us (I keep using all that us/we talk because I helped Ben argue the case). These downloadable ballots are an easy solution to our arguments about the violation of equal protection in the current system, but I think they are afraid to recognize the inequality (and unconstitutionality) of the current system because it is so close to the election (hence all the consequentalist arguments by the election council about how difficult it would be to implement any changes).

It’s actually quite embarrassing that the university can efficiently set up what ASUC has been balking at doing for years.

Regarding their reluctance realistically—or cynically—it’s easy to see why major parties would not want to support such a bill. Both CalSERVE and Student Action gain their power from highly mobilized sectors of campus who consistently come out in force during election week. Were more students who are unattached to either major player offered easy electronic access to the ballot, it could significantly alter the balance of power. No wonder senators don’t want to deal with this issue until “later.” It’s like asking them to hack off their right arm and present it to SQUELCH! with a smile.

Yes! again. It's nice to see the Daily Cal call out the major parties for their obviously self-interested opposition to online voting. And in terms of my own interest in seeing this passed, it's a happy coincidence that what is good for the sudent body as a whole (easy voting) might also be good for SQUELCH!. Decision should be out in another day or two.

"Developing", is I believe the preferred nomenclature...Email This Post!