The polls for the student government elections opened on MyCourses for the student body Tuesday at noon — at least for non-freshmen.
Most members of the class of 2013 were not able to vote because their names were apparently not added to the access list, according to Undergraduate Council of Students President Clay Wertheimer '10.
The Elections Board released its plan Tuesday evening to accommodate for the student population left out of the first day of voting for members of UCS, the Undergraduate Finance Board and class boards. According to the established policy codes of the Elections Board, all students must be given 24–48 hours to vote, said board member Sarah Rutherford '12.
Rutherford said the options are contingent on the capabilities of MyCourses. Plan A, she said, would be to extend voting time beyond Thursday at noon for only the students affected so that they could have a "concrete 48 hours" to vote. In this scenario, the polls would close at different times, but all students would have the same amount of time to vote. Rutherford said this plan depends on whether MyCourses will allow only the affected students to vote longer.
But if MyCourses cannot be configured to do this, then the board will resort to one of two "all or nothing" scenarios, Rutherford wrote in an e-mail to The Herald. If the problem is resolved before noon on Wednesday, then the voting time for all students will end as initially planned, which would still allow the affected students a 24-hour window in which to vote. But if the problem cannot be resolved before noon on Wednesday, the Elections Board would extend voting for everybody, Rutherford said.
In that final case, the Elections Board would violate its established code by providing more than 48 hours for the majority to vote. Rutherford wrote that the board would prefer giving some people ample time to vote rather than giving certain students under 24 hours.
The way the polls are set up on MyCourses, Wertheimer said, students must be enrolled in a "UCS-UFB Elections" course in order to access the ballot. But Wertheimer said some or all of the current freshman class were not added to the course list this year.
"I got a call from a student around 4 (p.m.)who didn't have the course listed," said Wertheimer, adding that other freshmen called him later. It is difficult to determine yet if the whole freshman class is affected because Wertheimer said he can only check the interface to determine enrollment one name at a time. The mix-up appears to be affecting only first-years, he said.
Wertheimer said he initially hoped to resolve the problem Tuesday, but UCS's contact at Computing and Information Services did not have control of adding names to the course.
By the time the issue was sent to the MyCourses systems administrator, that administrator had already left for the day. Wertheimer said he hopes the issue will be resolved and full access to the polls will be provided by Wednesday morning.
Elections Board Chair Kening Tan '12 said the board encourages all students to vote as soon as they can rather than rely on an extension. She added that the board is still determining whether campaigning will be extended.
Members of the Elections Board sent e-mails to first-years and the candidates Tuesday evening to notify them of the problem.
"We will wait until everything is resolved to send a campus-wide e-mail" that announces the new voting plan, Wertheimer said.
