GSB OKs electronic voting

Steven Brittain

In the aftermath of a complicated and confusing presidential election, the Government of the Student Body is working to make sure their spring elections don’t need a recount.The Government of the Student Body unanimously approved the proposed changes to the election code, which will allow students to vote for GSB officials online.In last year’s GSB elections, candidates for the Richardson Court Association senator seats had to wait about a week before they knew the results of their election.”There was a recount situation that happened to me last year,” said Brent Welder, LAS senator. “This online system has the potential to correct these types of problems and create a more efficient way to vote.”Chris Wisher, GSB election commissioner, said the new system of voting will be very beneficial to the student body. The new system, which was added to the bylaws last year, will be a Web site “almost like Access Plus” said Wisher, off campus.The election commission will meet Jan. 29 with Jeff Sorensen, systems analyst for the Academic Information Technologies Department, in the Computation Center to discuss the process, Wisher said.”Students will be able to log on with their ISU e-mail address and password and have access to the entire voting process from anywhere,” he said.Welder said he is satisfied with the senate’s decision to convert to an electronic style of voting.”It makes for a much more accurate representation of the candidates that the students want to see on GSB,” he said.The system will also save the university a substantial amount of money, Wisher said.”We will be eliminating almost all of the manpower that was needed for the elections of the past,” he said.While the majority of the election will be done on the Web site, the election commission will still be setting up one official polling site for students who are having trouble logging on, he said.”We understand that not all of the bugs will be out of the system just yet,” Wisher said.