Online ballots still controversial

Election Board officials for the undergraduate student
government said last spring’s general election results were
not compromised by bloc voting though election statistics released
this week show several individual Internet Protocol addresses
contributed numerous votes.

IP addresses alone will not determine if any suspicious activity
took place during the elections because an individual IP address
could serve a number of computers through an Internet router.

The statistics, which were compiled by College Information
Services, show that 129 votes “”mdash; or 2.3 percent of the total
votes cast “”mdash; came from an IP address correlated to a computer
kiosk in Ackerman Union that was designated for voting. A second
campus IP address was used to cast 88 votes, and three off-campus
IP addresses contributed 25 or more votes.

The statistics do not necessarily mean students voted in
concert.

Michael Cohn, the administrative representative to the
Undergraduate Students Association Council’s Elections Board,
said in some cases on-campus computers share IP addresses, making
it impossible to determine if all votes associated with a
particular address were cast at a single computer.

It is also uncertain whether any off-campus computer was used to
cast a significant number of votes.

“We manage MyUCLA so the only information we know about
the computers hosting browser sessions connected to MyUCLA is their
IP addresses,” said Eric Splaver, the college computing
director, in an e-mail Monday.

In the 2003 USAC election, an additional measure intended to
curtail bloc voting was in place.

A second vote could not be cast from a single computer until a
five minute period had expired. The measure was meant to discourage
large groups from voting together.

But the council did not renew the rule for the 2004 election.
Roy Samaan, the 2004 Election Board Chairman, said the delay was
unnecessary and could have even impeded student voting.

Cohn believes bloc voting is not an issue to be concerned about
and said instances of bloc voting have probably decreased because
of online polling, which began at UCLA in the 2003 elections.
“There were far more opportunities (for bloc voting) the way
it used to be,” Cohn said regarding the time when paper
ballots were used.

When students voted at on-campus polling locations student
groups could provide incentives, such as free pizza, in exchange
for votes, he said.Another aspect of voting during the 2004
elections that was different in the previous elections was that
students were not able to vote between midnight and 7 a.m.

In a letter from the office of John Sandbrook, special assistant
to the executive dean, written on behalf of College Information
Services, it is recommended that the voting service be available
for 24 hours a day, since all other MyUCLA services are available
all day. The letter also states that it is in the best interest of
student body since a considerable number had voted during the
“no-access” times in the 2003 elections.

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