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ASM elections see low voter turnout

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Also by Sundeep Malladi and Andriy Pazuniak:

by Sundeep Malladi and Andriy Pazuniak

Friday, April 14, 2006

The University of Wisconsin Associated Students of Madison announced a low voter turnout rate Thursday, with 3 percent of students voting in the election.

"We foresaw a low voter turnout, considering this was the third election attempt, and we were forced to resort to a paper-ballot system," ASM Student Election Commission Chair Tim Leonard said in a release. "Though the numbers were low, we thank students for supporting their candidates and getting out the vote in this election."

Others agreed the low voter turnout was directly attributed to an SEC decision to use a paper-ballot system for the elections.

"It's the third time running the election. [Students] had to go to the voting place … as opposed to going to any computer in the world," ASM Chair Eric Varney said.

ASM officials were forced to convert to a paper ballot after two failed elections. The former online-voting process was abandoned after officials from ASM and the UW Division of Information Technology discovered flaws in the online-voting system.

Leonard added that students were apathetic toward the third election partly because of a lack of convenience. Voters were able to choose from six polling locations, including both Unions, College Library, Grainger Hall, Van Hise and Steenbock Library.

Online voting in the past has resulted in far higher voter turnout. Varney said participation was as high as 11 to 12 percent last year and 18 percent two years ago. In fact, an estimated 22.4 percent of students voted on the two UW referendums during the first round of failed online ASM elections; however, the results of the referendums have since been thrown out.

Despite paper ballots, SEC officials said there was still the possibility of a minor error involving one of the ballot boxes.

"We're going to tabulate the votes and investigate some things," Leonard said. "The issue we had did not affect the integrity of the election."

Leonard added ASM would release a report on the possible error.

Still, considering voting dilemmas, ASM officials were happy the election was now behind them.

"We think it's over. We're glad it's over," Varney said. "It's been a long process."

ASM is expected to reveal preliminary results of the election Monday.

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Anonymous (April 14, 2006 @ 3:16am):

ASM better hope it's over.

Anonymous (April 14, 2006 @ 3:29am):

People want to see reform yet they don't bother to vote. I understand that our votes were thrown out not only once, but two times. However, ASM is still going, so why should nearly the entire student body simply give up and not vote? This is what we have, let's work with it, form it into what we want to be our government.

Anonymous (April 14, 2006 @ 9:10am):

wow, they throw out nearly 15,000 votes to save the integrity of 1000... classic.

Anonymous (April 14, 2006 @ 12:56pm):

quite the mandate.

Anonymous (April 15, 2006 @ 1:08pm):

What about the 15,000 who did vote originally? Is there any way to integrate the two so that no one who voted is disenfranchised?

Anonymous (April 17, 2006 @ 12:08am):

THIS VOTE WAS CORRUPTED TOO! WE'LL HAVE TO REVOTE AGAIN!

Just kidding...but how many of you believed me?

Anonymous (April 17, 2006 @ 12:43pm):

minor error with the ballot boxes? sure it was minor if you consider all the zip ties on the second batch of boxes going into the UWPD vault being cut and potentially tampered with, the cops seeing it, ASM saying that they would like to wait to file a police report until the ballots were counted (WTF?), and then this 'minor'error as a side note not to be a major incident and obvious tampering of election material...

BH why haven't you run an article on this yet? Why hasn't anyone called them on this?