The Barometer Online

Issue date: 6/7/06 Section: News

This year's ASOSU elections saw many changes, including a new online voting system that planners hoped would increase voter turnout.

Kyla Johnson, the 2005-06 ASOSU vice president and chair of this year's Elections Committee, said recently that turnout did increase this year.

But the numbers - despite being complicated by several variables - disagree.

"We bumped (voter turnout) up to about 22 percent for the student body," Kyla Johnson said. "Before it was hovering around 10 to 12 (percent)."

But the 2006 general election saw just 2,130 people vote. This number is only approximately 11 percent of the 19,162 students who attend OSU.

Kyla Johnson did not reply to two e-mails and a phone message asking for comment on this discrepancy.

Matt Tschabold, former ASOSU executive director of finance, said that "to say there was a higher turnout this year is misleading."

"(There are) way too many variables to determine which voting process is more effective for voter turnout," he said.

Tschabold said the variables that can contribute to voter turnout can include which constituencies a candidate represents, how many candidates are running, how busy students are and even the weather.

Compare the elections in 2004 and 2006. Unlike in 2005, these years had contested races. In 2004, with three different tickets in the race, the total number of votes received by the three tickets was 2,028. The 2006 executive tickets received a total of 2,008 votes.

Data comparison of these two years may indicate to some that online voting was not successful because the turnout decreased.

But Tschabold said a number of variables that differ between the 2004 and 2006 elections could have led to a decrease in voter turnout. For example:

"Voting booths have the advantage of catching the eyes of many students as they pass by, which most likely encourages voting," he said.

"It is only the first year of going online, so it could take some time (to see an increase in voter turnout)," said current ASOSU Vice President Lindsey Johnson.

But some candidates feel the new voting system was still successful.

"It was much easier and took much less time," Lindsey Johnson said. "People could do it from anywhere."

"It really doesn't give anyone an excuse not to vote," said Julien Deveraux, chair of the Undergraduate Senate.

Some problems did arise with the online voting. For one, it was possible for students to vote for senators from colleges not their own. The committee has recommended finding away to prevent this from happening in the future.

OTHER CHANGES

In addition to online voting, this was the first year the committee offered space for candidates to place candidate biographies online. Facebook.com opened a new realm of campaigning possibilities. To address this new type of campaigning, the committee created a Web monitor position.

The Elections Committee also made other changes to help increase voter turnout, including moving debates from a campus TV studio to the Memorial Union and reserving computers in campus labs for voting. Recommendations for next year include setting up computers in the MU Concourse, solely for voting.

Not everything went as planned, however.

Annette McFarland, former vice presidential candidate for the 2006 election who also served on the Elections Committee for two years, including one as its chair, explained that from her experience, there had always been a voter's pamphlet for the primary and general elections. This year the general election had no voter's guide.

"I was appalled," McFarland said.

"It was our fault," Kyla Johnson said. "(The) person who was supposed to get it in just assumed that we had enough coverage because (the elections had) been covered all week long, and so they just made the decision."

MISCOMMUNICATION

Other aspects of the election process left both candidates and the committee confused.

"The Elections Committee was not very good at communicating with me," said Joel Fischer, former candidate for ASOSU vice president and 2005-06 ASOSU state affairs task force director. "There were many times that I would ask committee members questions about the rules and I was met with completely blank stares."

Nick Graham, former ASOSU presidential candidate, cited inaccurate information in the elections packet for the candidates, such as old dates and dates that had not yet been filled in.

"Olson/Johnson was more prepared for the elections than the Elections Committee was," Graham said.

More miscommunication arose surrounding violations.

"The candidates got really confused at the very beginning," Kyla Johnson said. She said candidates did not fully understand the process, which included a chance for the candidates to testify on the matter resulting in a final decision from the committee.

Some candidates criticized the process.

"(The committee wasn't) providing any evidence or much follow-up on the violation process," Deveraux said. "There isn't due process for when you get a violation."

Fischer noted other negative effects of the violations.

"We were concerned that other candidates were not playing fairly and stealing our signs and then getting us violations," he said.

Five violations was grounds for disqualification, which some candidates were nearing.

"With rules being so incredibly strict and easy to receive violations, it put all the candidates in situations that caused everyone to file against each other," said current ASOSU President Michael Olson.

"Violations just create a negative situation for us all and a huge headache in general," Fischer said. "The rules should be changed so there isn't so much risk for disqualification."

Stake signs caused many of the violations this year, the result of a new rule not allowing stake signs to be posted anywhere on campus between the hours of 6 a.m. and 9 a.m. to give access to grounds crews.

Fischer said the entire process of putting up and taking down posters was very time consuming, time when "we could be out there talking to students."

Fischer suggested banning stake signs all together.

He also said top ticket candidates were allowed a budget of $500, which gives a severe disadvantage to low-income students. Fischer would like to see lower maximum limits on campaign spending.

"I spent a lot of time fundraising when I could have been campaigning," Fischer said. "(The current financial limit) definitely gives an advantage to wealthier candidates."

As another solution, Fischer also suggested having student fees help fund the election.

BUDGET

Last year the Elections committee spent $3,289.04 on voting costs. Due to the switch from paper ballots to online voting, the Elections Committee has saved approximately this much, according to Tschabold.

Voting costs in previous years have included the cost of voter ballots, payroll for non-students to run the polls and tabulation of the votes. However, with online voting, these costs were deferred.

Even with a smaller budget, ideas are still circulating for how to improve the elections process in the future.

"It would be good to have paper ballots as well (as online voting)," Fischer said. He felt this could increase accessibility to students.

Olson agreed, saying "greater voter turnout ... can be accomplished through a combination of online voting and regular paper balloting."

Fischer also noted a new system that has been implemented at Portland State University known as "instant runoff voting." This voting reform system asks the voter to rank the candidates in order of preference.

Fischer explained that this voting system would rid the need for a primary. He believes voter turnout would increase if students were not asked to vote twice.

Graham noted that podcasting, a method of distributing multimedia files over the Internet, could be utilized in future elections.

Graham also explained that an e-mail sent to the all-student listserve, reminding students when it was Election Day, would be helpful.

JUDICIAL RULING

This year's election also saw the involvement of the ASOSU Judicial Board. When Deveraux decided to change the position he was running for, new attention was brought to the clarity of the election rules.

Deveraux wanted to switch from running as a College of Science senator to undergraduate senate chair. Allan Gaerlan was originally running uncontested in this position.

"(This was) a pretty big thing for the committee," Kyla Johnson said.

The committee decided to allow the switch because a previous senator candidate had already been allowed to switch positions earlier in the election process. The committee also allowed the move because the original deadline that had been met was for "candidacy filing"- - no deadline existed for "position filing."

This event culminated with a review by the ASOSU Judicial Board, which ruled in favor of the committee's decision to allow the position switch.

While Gaerlan feels that "there should be a written guideline in the election committee guidelines," he is content with the outcome of the decision,

"We spent like all year working on guidelines ... trying to foresee every possible thing," Kyla Johnson said. "(But) one more thing popped up... (and) that's just how your guidelines become pretty inclusive."

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