Undergraduates will be able to vote starting today for
candidates in this year’s Undergraduate Students Association
Council election but fewer restrictions in the voting process could
be cause for some concern in regard to matters like bloc
voting.
USAC Elections Board Chairman Nathan Lam said this year the
board decided to make voting continuous, from 7 p.m. today to 7
p.m. on Thursday. In addition, he said a regulation that allows
only one vote every five minutes from one IP address would not be
implemented.
Last year, voting was not permitted on MyUCLA between the hours
of 12 a.m. and 7 a.m. The decision to allow unlimited votes from
one computer at any point in the day has raised concerns about bloc
voting.
Bloc voting is the act of several students joining together to
cast identical votes. The term usually implies that the votes are
being cast by individuals for a certain group, at the same time and
at the same voting station, while an individual supervises the
votes of group members, preventing them from voting for anyone or
anything other than selected candidates or referenda.
In 2003, the USAC Elections Board took steps to prevent bloc
voting by implementing a five-minute voting delay on IP addresses
accessing the MyUCLA Web site, which discouraged multiple voters
from accessing the ballot from one computer within a short period
of time.
In 2004, the Elections Board decided not to continue the
delay.
Statistics compiled by UCLA College Information Services after
the 2004 elections showed that three off-campus IP addresses were
recorded as contributing 25 or more votes during the voting period.
This information was inconclusive about the existence of bloc
voting at these IP addresses since there are instances where a
number of computers share an IP address.
College Information Services recommended that voting services be
available 24 hours a day on the MyUCLA Web site, since all other
services on the Web site are available around the clock.
Lam said the decision to create continuous voting was not just
an issue of access, but one of practicality. He said MyUCLA offers
continuous services for all of its features, so it was largely
inconvenient when MyUCLA only offered ballots from 7 a.m. to
midnight, both for MyUCLA administrators and students.
Lam said there might be some concern over bloc voting occurring,
but the benefits of greater regulation would be marginal.
“It just requires a ridiculous amount of regulation. …
It isn’t worth the concern,” Lam said.
Even with the voting delay policy not in place and the ability
to vote at any time available, student groups have expressed little
interest in bloc voting.
Matt Knee, chairman of Bruin Republicans, said he had not heard
of any instances of bloc voting in his four years at UCLA.
Knee said there is no requirement for Bruin Republicans to vote
for certain candidates or referendums, though there is
encouragement for members to vote along endorsement lines.
“But there is no social ostracism,” he said.
Knee added that the IP delay caused unintended consequences,
since groups like fraternities and sororities, who would all access
the Internet via one router, would use the same IP address.
Faryal Humkar, a third-year communication studies student who is
a member of the Muslim Students Association and a writer for the
newsmagazine Al-Talib, said that students in the MSA are given
opportunities to hear the viewpoints of each candidate, each of
whom is invited to speak at meetings. The group uses endorsements
as encouragement, similar to other student groups.
“We are encouraged to vote,” Humkar said, “It
is important.”
Chris Hatfield, the president of the UCLA Interfraternity
Council, said all fraternity members do not think the same way, and
voting for endorsed candidates is not a requirement.
“We like to look at (endorsements) as
encouragements,” Hatfield said.
Hatfield added that there is encouragement for all fraternity
members to vote. Presidents act as liaisons to their chapters to
encourage votes for endorsed candidates, but Hatfield said not all
will be swayed.
“On a campus like UCLA, there are so many different points
of view,” Hatfield said.