After a 73 per cent voter turnout March 28 in the Carleton Academic Student Government (CASG) elections, vice-president internal (elect) Ruba Khan said she fully supports the move to online voting.
“There’s so many ways and mechanisms to make sure it is a secure thing,” Khan said. “It’s more environmentally friendly, and there’s no reason why you can’t have a transparent election online.”
“A Stronger CASG” received the majority of the total 60 student votes cast, according to the official election results. Newly elected Board of Governors undergraduate representative Alexander Golovko was also elected as CASG president, alongside Khan and vice-president (academic)-elect Andrew Kwai and vice-president (operations)-elect James Armbruster.
In addition, Miriam Diamond was elected science co-ordinator, and the positions of two Faculty of Arts and Social Sciences co-ordinators and Faculty of Public Affairs co-ordinator were acclaimed by Dustin Hutton-Alcorn, Jean Luc Ngabo, and Delroy Dyer, respectively.
The election was overall a success, Golovko said, adding that he believes the online voting system is a better way to conduct elections overall.
“No paper ballots, so no potential for ballot-stuffing,” he said.
Having a member of the administration, clerk of the senate and associate vice-president (academic) Brian Mortimer, run the elections also helped, Golovko said.
“There isn’t this student-input phenomenon where some students obviously support other students . . . for the administration it doesn’t really matter,” he said.
However, Mortimer said he doesn’t think high voter turnout can be attributed purely to online voting.
“It’s pretty unusual to have a student vote on the campus with a 73 per cent participation,” Mortimer said. “That’s not because of the online voting, that’s because people really cared about the results.”
That said, Mortimer said he thinks online voting added to the convenience.
“If [students] can get to an Internet connection, they can vote in the election . . . when you move online voting, it typically increases your participation rate by about five or six percentage points,” he said.
“You just take the vote online whenever you’re free, whenever you’re on the computer — overall very effective, very environmentally-friendly,” Golovko agreed.
The new CASG executive will take office June 1.