SG to test electronic voting

Students will vote from their computers. (Photo from defacto archives)

This year the Student Government (SG) will hold its presidential elections electronically if the student-developed voting program created for this purpose proves effective during testing.

Albanian freshmen Ergys Ristani, Deni Vangjeli and Genti Tola developed the program from scratch in around five days. Ristani said the idea came to him after reading an article in a student medium reporting that electronic voting was suggested during one of the SG meetings. "I asked my roommates if they are up for it, and they agreed," he added.

"The guys got the idea themselves, they just came to SG to give the idea," Senator Arian Berdellima said. SG and its advisors, Dean of Students Lydia Krise and Political Science professor Bobby Phillips, approved of the electronic voting system. "If they guarantee that it's secure, I think it's a good idea to encourage people to vote," Krise said. She added the initiative is greener because there will be no need to print the voting ballots.

SG expects higher turnout at the elections because of electronic voting system. "Electronic voting is much easier, and you don't have to stand around in line," Krise said. She added AUBG already has a good turnout at SG elections, compared to other higher education institutions.

SG will start testing the program by the end of the week with the help of a small group of students, SG President Vasile Valcov said. "If everything works, we will have a professor from the Computer Science (COS) department or COS seniors check it to make sure that the program will not manipulate the outcome of the elections," he added. "It is not a matter of trust, it is a matter of check and controls to assure students that the system has integrity," Valcov said.

To vote on the election day, students will have to log in on the SG website using their AUBG username and a randomly generated password which they will receive via e-mail. There is no risk of password hacking, Valcov said. "The program that generates the passwords stores them in a database that no student will have access to until after the elections are over," he added. The password students receive is disposable so AUBGers will not be able to cast their votes more than once.

SG will also have no access to the voting results until the end of the elections. "When we are confident enough that the system will work, OCC [will remove] our access," Valcov said. Only one OCC staff member will have access to it during the election day, he added. The electronic voting system grants complete anonymity to students, Valcov said.

One of Phillips's concerns about the electronic voting system was the absence of a paper trail. That is why SG plans to set up a printer to print out a ballot every time a vote is cast, Valcov said. "We still don't know where and how it will be done," he added. The Elections Committee will discuss the options with OCC this week, Valcov said.

The voting system will run on a server provided by OCC. That way SG can test it and fix it, Valcov said. He added that OCC Director Lachezar Filtchev "was very supportive from the first time we asked OCC help for online elections."