The Camosun College Student Society (CCSS) is moving over to electronic voting in their upcoming student elections. Instead of voting in person, Camosun students will receive an email with a link to an electronic ballot, says CCSS executive director Michel Turcotte.
“E-voting is an initiative that the student society has been trying to pursue for many years,” says Turcotte. “The previous [Camosun College] registrars have agreed to the concept, but there have been other priorities.”
Around five percent of the student population has voted in previous years; Turcotte hopes that the switch to e-voting will change those numbers.
“The real question is whether it will increase voter turnout,” he says. “It’s our hope that it will do that.”
Camosun registrar Scott Harris approached the student society and suggested e-voting, says Turcotte.
“As a result of those conversations we’ve decided to do an e-voting trial,” says Turcotte. “We’re, essentially, buying a licence from a vendor that provides this sort of service.”
Harris says that the vendor is extremely secure and that the platform, Election Runner, is used by many companies and governments.
“We evaluated four different e-voting platforms, and that was the one that was not only the most user-friendly and gave the best experience, but was also the cheapest,” says Harris, “which usually doesn’t go hand-in-hand.”
Turcotte says it cost $2,025 to get the system up and running, which is a one-time cost paid by the CCSS. Through e-voting, students at Lansdowne will be able to vote for Interurban executives and vice versa; this was not possible before. The CCSS could also use the software to get students’ input for other reasons.
“The software can be used to poll students on other issues if there’s a desire to do that,” says Turcotte.
Camosun College also holds elections for student positions on its board of governors. Harris says that the college has chosen to combine the CCSS and Camosun elections for the first time through the e-voting process.
“We’ve done that because students are voting for their representatives regardless of which representing body it is,” says Harris, “whether it’s CCSS or board or senate. I wanted to make it as seamless of a process for students as possible.”
There will be no in-person voting this time around; Turcotte says paper-and-pencil voting will not be an option for students in the interest of clarity.
“It would be confusing and hard to calculate if we had two separate systems going,” says Turcotte. “There are other advantages to the electronic system. It’s easier to administer. It requires less staffing, hours, and effort. Certainly, it’s easier to count.”
Both Turcotte and Harris say that students don’t need to worry about any corruption or security issues with the electronic voting.
“There’s a high level of security involved,” says Turcotte. “Once the election’s started, it’s locked down. Each student is emailed an individual voter ID. It’s not like your friend can open it up and click it.”
Harris says that the order of the candidates is also electronically randomized, which will hopefully reduce order bias.
“If you look at any election research and whatnot, you’ll know that the first name on the ballot… there’s sort of an additional push for that name just being first, right?”
Harris also says that the platform, Election Runner, is completely confidential.
“One of the other concerns I heard when we first started exploring this was, ‘Well, the administrators have the ability to see who’s leading on the back end and maybe do some election interference,’” says Harris. “The administrators of the election cannot see the results until the results are final.”