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Online problems postpone election

March 14, 2002

Changes in the universitywide student elections ballot already are being made by MSU’s Computer Center, Student Life officials said Wednesday.

ASMSU representative elections, constitutional changes and a $3 tax increase referendum all were recommended to be postponed Tuesday night by the All University Election Commission. Lee June, vice president for student affairs, approved the recommendation Wednesday. The University Apartments’ Council of Residents also chose to postpone voting.

Voting will resume Tuesday and will last through March 23.

The decision to postpone the elections came from glitches with the online ballot program designed by the Computer Center. The glitches included the inability to log on to the program, the ability to vote for colleges students were not enrolled in and Academic Assembly seats were determined by the population of the college. The directions to create the ballot came from the election commission.

Lewis Greenberg, director of the Computer Center, could not be reached for comment Wednesday.

“The issue for me is not the issue of whose fault it was,” said June, who approved the postponement. “The issue is how to correct this in the future.”

Cathy Neuman, associate director of Student Life, said student groups were instructed to submit wording criteria in February.

Neuman, who acts as a liaison between Student Life and the Computer Center, said this was the first time the computer program was used.

“The program is very complex,” she said. “The Computer Center has already made changes in order for Tuesday. It’s one of these things where a lot of tweaking has to be done. Until they get on it, they don’t know if it won’t work.”

Testing was supposed to be done on the system before the polls opened March 12, but officials said students did not test the system because the testing period was during spring break.

“The proper tests had not been done,” June said. “We have to stop it, correct it and redo it. I can’t think of a better alternative given the set of circumstances that have originated.”

Discussions about the design of the ballot started in December and the Computer Center began working on the online ballot in early January. Members of the election commission were chosen in mid-February. Melanie Olmsted, chairperson of the election commission, said it was formed too late for the ballot to be completely authorized before it was sent to the Computer Center.

“Because of time constraints, the changes we made were made too late to be repaired,” Olmsted said about ballot wording.

Eric Smith, a member of the election commission, said the commission should have been chosen during the week before fall semester final exams.

“That’s one of the biggest concerns,” he said. “We had less than a month to prepare. The Computer Center essentially did what they were supposed to.”

ASMSU Academic Assembly James Madison College Rep. Jared English, said he was unable to log on to to vote Tuesday.

“Yesterday I tried at about 10 a.m. and then I tried again around 6 p.m. and again later that night,” he said. “I wasn’t able to at any time. I voted today.”

English said he isn’t sure why he wasn’t able to vote.

“I think it’s a great idea to postpone the elections,” he said. “Because of the errors, I don’t think that the elections would be fair.”

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