Hello fellow students,
I am writing this open letter because I was the one in charge of the student elections that took place before reading week. Hopefully most of you are aware that we experienced some problems during the first day of voting and I would like to take this opportunity to explain why the ballot had to be reset. Once we figured out what the technical aspects of the problem were, it was clear that if we did not reset the numbers, about fifteen percent of students who wanted to cast their vote would not have been able to.
I was able to derive this number from the voter turnout of last year’s election, where roughly fifteen percent of the student population voted. Basically, when you log into the voting site with your student number, it disguises you as a random 10-digit number so that you’re able to cast your vote anonymously. This year, ITSS had to reset all the previous attachments between student numbers and 10-digit numbers so that no two numbers would be tethered. This means that for anyone who logged in to vote this year, there was about a fifteen percent chance that they would be re-assigned a 10-digit number with a vote already recorded by someone else from the previous year.
The student association operates on a budget which is made up by the fees we each pay as a part of our tuition. It would not be fair to anyone who helped pay for the costs of the student association without representing that stake with a vote. I made the decision to reset the ballot because it was in the best interest of all the students at Saint Mary’s. The only reservation I had with a full reset was to know for sure that we would not encounter the same problem again. Once I spoke to the program designer on the phone, I okay’ed the reset.
At 5pm on February 13th, we cleared the cache of votes and extended voting all night until 9pm the following day. Posters were put up around campus and on polling stations, and there was an extensive social media campaign to notify every one of the reset. Hopefully everyone who had previously voted was able to re-vote. If not then I apologize, but I do not regret my decision. I value full disclosure and I think that is an important part of what SMUSA represents. It is a student-owned business and every one of us is a stakeholder – that is why everyone’s vote matters and that is why the ballot was reset.
James Patriquin
Chief Returning Officer
