The election results for next year’s Student Association members, announced March 29, revealed Alex Monahan is to be the next St. Michael’s College S.A. president with Mallory Wood serving as vice-president. The two candidates — who campaigned on separate ballots — were chosen in a year of record turnout.

This election marked the second year the college has utilized electronic voting software. The S.A. has again contracted the Virginia-based company, ACTS, which provided them with the software necessary to run the voting.

The opening screen for the St. Michael's online voting site (image created by: Rachel Haven)

Easy as pie

The program allowed students to cast their ballots at stations set up in Alliot or online at any other location.

Secretary of Finance Charles Bouteiller, a member of the student elections and oversight committee, says the turnout was strong due in part to the ease of electronic voting.

“Online, everything is calculated for us, whereas in the past if you had 1100 ballots, you would have to count all those by hand,” Bouteiller says. “It increases voter turnout, it makes the whole process easier for everyone, and it makes the results faster.”

S.A. President Arly Scully says the convenience of online voting along with the stiff competition helped boost the turnout.

“People can [vote] from their room, so they don’t necessarily have to come to the voting booth,” Scully says. “But this year, I think because it was such a highly contested race, people got out to vote.”

The software, which the committee purchased from ACTS, ensures that only people with valid ID numbers can vote, and once their vote is cast, they can not vote again, Bouteiller says.

Once the votes were tabulated, they were reviewed by Bouteiller, Scully, and Gary Levante, who is also a member of the elections and oversight committee.

Each year a faculty or staff member also oversees the ballot review process. This year, Lou DiMasi agreed to work with the committee.

“It’s a well overseen process,” Bouteiller says. “We do it that way so that there can’t be any discrepancies.”

Proof positive

The electronic software may save the S.A. hours of tallying votes, but it also eliminates the security of the paper trail old fashioned ballots leave behind.

However, Bouteiller remains adamant that the electronic ballets are tamper-proof.

“It’s entirely secure,” Bouteiller says. “There is no way to get in and manipulate any of the stuff. I just don’t think it’s possible.”

Scully also maintains that the election is completely safeguarded.
“The only person that had access to the election site was Charles Bouteiller,” Scully says. “I didn’t even know what the election results were until we actually got them.”

“There is no way to get in and manipulate any of the stuff. I just don’t think it’s possible.” - Charles Bouteiller says of St. Michael's College online voting

Even though there aren’t physical ballots, Scully says that if someone were to request a recount, the committee could re-enter the system to view the votes.

“We keep all the results on file for a couple of years at least, just to be safe,” Bouteiller says. “They could challenge it, and if they wanted to see the results, we’d show them.”

Scully acknowledged that there were a couple of downsides to voting electronically,
including a lot of uncertainty surrounding the log-in for the voting system.

“People got really confused,” Scully says. “I think that if you do electronic voting, you still need to have voting sites that people can go to if they have questions - which a lot of people did.”

Scully said that because the voting list came from the Registrar’s office, the students’ total number of academic credits determined the class that they voted in.

“Let’s say that you are a junior but you have enough credits to put you in the senior class, then you vote in the senior class and not with the junior class,” Scully says. “A lot of people were upset about that, but there’s really not much we can do.”

Not so fast!

Over the years, electronic ballots and online voting have become more prevalent across the U.S. and the globe.

In a society dominated by technology, it’s no surprise the U.S. is making the switch to replace paper ballots with more technologically advanced methods of voting.

However, there is a definite downside to this technology, leaving many to wonder whether it should be used at all.

St. Michael’s Computer Science professor John Trono is skeptical of the reliability of Internet voting.

“Even though voting over the Internet sounds very easy, and could save everyone lots of time since they wouldn't have to stand in line, this is fraught with even more problems, and liabilities,” Trono wrote in an e-mail interview. “We may have to just vote the 'old fashioned way' for the foreseeable future if we wish to be reasonably assured that our vote has been counted accurately.”

Patricia Siplon, a Political Science professor at St. Michael’s says that she doesn’t believe elections should be computerized.

"I think electronic balloting can only work in situations where the trust level among all participants is very high," Siplon says. "Given the elections in 2000 and 2004, I think that is decidedly not the case in the U.S.”

However, both professors feel that the electronic voting at St. Michael’s could be a positive thing given the proper guidance.

“For something like a vote here at SMC, provided there is adequate physical monitoring, it is probably an accurate and certainly quick system,” says Siplon.

Trono says that switching to electronic voting at St. Michael’s is a positive change, “If it increases turn out, and there is a high level of confidence that the final results are accurate.”

Bouteiller assures that the voting is completely reliable.

“We are absolutely fair and impartial and we do everything by the book,” he says.