The recent Associated Student-body of Green River Community College (ASGRCC) elections are over. Despite the fact that a large amount of hard work and unique solutions were put forth to educate the 10,000 students about the candidates and election, there were too many students unaware of the elections, and too many flaws in the election process.
On the 27th of April, one of the official election days, I found myself at the election table in the Lindbloom Student Center (LSC) standing near automotive student Dustin Hodgins who muttered, "I had no idea there was an election." The only information I saw around the campus was a few signs. At the table there were four information sheets on the four candidates. One of these sheets was faded and hard to read.
Upstairs from the LSC is the Student Life office. At the reception desk there was Cassius Butcher, Chief Justice of the Judicial Committee and the official "referee" of the elections. He believed there had been decent advertising. "Fliers and word of mouth were the main ways we promoted the election," he said. He also spoke of the debate which was held on Monday at noon in the cafeteria, in which candidates discussed things such as parking, and the cost of books from a set of prepared questions.
Still, some students think that the fliers and debate were not enough. When asked about his opinions on the amount of information available about the elections, student Duke Hefner commented, "I feel they should speak their minds to classes." He also spoke about the need for more advertising. Personally, I did not know about the debate and could not have attended even with the knowledge of it as most college students have things to do throughout the day.
Sadly, even the mechanism that allowed students to vote was flawed. In order to vote online, a student would visit the web page, choose two candidates, enter his or her name, and the last four digits of his or her student number. The page does not stop a student from trying more than once. By simply knowing a student's first and last name (a few are even in this article!) a simple computer script can easily try every one of the 10,000 possible numbers in a few seconds. I know, because I successfully ran it on my own name and voted without typing my student number!
When I asked Cassius about why online voting was chosen, he talked about the hassle of sorting out those who voted twice just to get free candy, and the ease of automatic counting as opposed to counting votes by hand. Despite these benefits, there were major flaws with the voting system that need to be addressed.
My own suggestion is to perhaps send out an email to the entire campus with information on all of the candidates. I know they can, as I've gotten a few unsolicited emails in the past few days concerning campus information. Obviously, more can be done to secure the voting process and educate voters on the candidates and the election, and hopefully these will take place in next year's election.
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