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ASM expects success in 4th attempt

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by Joanna Pliner

Monday, October 16, 2006

The University of Wisconsin Associated Students of Madison Student Council elections are approaching, and the student government is making efforts to ensure a smooth election process and maximize voter turnout.

UW students will have the opportunity to vote for Student Council representatives as well as the Living Wage and Student Union Initiative referendums Wednesday and Thursday between noon and 6:30 p.m.

Voting stations will be set up at Engineering Hall, College Library, Gordon Commons and Holt Commons.

Last spring, two rounds of Student Council election results in which students voted for council representatives and the Living Wage and Student Union Initiative referendums were thrown out due to technical difficulties with the electronic voting system supplied by the UW Department of Information Technology.

ASM conducted a third round of elections for Student Council representatives with a paper-ballot voting system last spring, but postponed the referendum votes until this semester.

Student Election Commission Chair Leah Moe said a paper ballot Scantron system would be used in the upcoming Student Council elections.

"Not only will the Scantron system be voter friendly," Moe said. "It will ensure electoral integrity by providing a virtually error-free counting mechanism of tangible voting records."

Moe said she expects a "pretty sizable" voter turnout this week, particularly because UW students are concerned with the results of the referendums' votes.

The Living Wage Initiative, proposed by the UW Student Labor Action Coalition, previously called for limited-term employees and student employees at the Wisconsin Union, University Health Services and Recreational Sports to earn the living wage of $10.23 an hour.

But since UW Chancellor John Wiley signed a six-year policy into effect earlier this month raising LTE hourly rate to living wage, the Living Wage Initiative on the ballot this week only calls for student employees to receive living wage.

If passed, the Student Union Initiative would raise student-segregated fees to fund renovations in Memorial Union and an entirely new Union South.

Students may vote for or against both referendums.

Representatives from the two initiatives said they do not share ASM's optimism about the upcoming elections.

Student Union Initiative Campaign Manager Angela Peters said the Student Union initiative asked to no avail for longer hours and more accessible locations for voting stations.

"We were denied most of our requests, so we're not necessarily happy about the accessibility of it," Peters said. "But we feel like for people who really care about this issue, there should be nothing preventing them from going to the polls and voting."

SLAC representative Ashok Kumar said the ASM elections have been consistently unsuccessful in past semesters, and he has similar expectations for this semester.

The paper ballot system, Kumar said, is less democratic than online voting because only students with "vested interests" will vote with the paper ballot system.

"If you base it on past years, I don't know how it could go successfully," Kumar said. "The argument could be made that [paper ballot voting] is better, but I think it's bad and it's not democratic given the facility of online voting."

Moe said ASM is researching various companies to develop a new electronic voting system by this spring, but no deals have been made yet.

"We had to overhaul everything that we previously used," Moe said. "And we discovered that it's a pretty unique system that we're looking for."

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Anonymous (October 16, 2006 @ 8:50am):

The Student Union Initiative is a way for the Union to force students to "donate." The portion of the project funded by students will not be complete for years to come and yet students next year will be paying $96 for it. Freshmen this year will have contributed nearly $400 to the project by the time they graduate.

Segregated fees are the only portion of the budget that we can control. This year students pay $365/semester. Vote No on the initiative to keep seg fees under control. Alumni have the choice to donate to projects such as this and students should also have that choice.

-Mr. Pirate

Anonymous (October 16, 2006 @ 12:51pm):

I expect success. I think this year's group has worked really hard to ensure a free and fair election.

Anonymous (October 16, 2006 @ 12:52pm):

"The paper ballot system, Kumar said, is less democratic than online voting because only students with "vested interests" will vote with the paper ballot system."

Isn't that how he won the Dane County Board position last spring...by paper ballot in the city/county elections? It's not like there was overwhelming proportion of supporters to eligible voters who elected him...