The Switch Upstairs... p.15

The Ring Two... p.19

VoLUME 35 Issue 17

UPEI STUDENT NEWSPAPER

Marcu 30, 2005

Defeated Candidate Demands A Re-

Nick Stewart News Editor

Defeated Executive VP Candidate Brad Deighan feels technical glitches in the electronic voting system used in this year’s Student Union elections may have skewed the results in the Executive VP election and he is demanding that a re-vote be held for the position.

Deighan told the Cadre that on the first day of the election, two students informed him that when they logged onto their student accounts to vote, his name had not appeared on the list of candidates running for the position of Executive VP. He said he immediately logged onto his own student account and his name did not appear on the ballot for Executive VP. He voted for other positions and signed off. After this he-signed back into his account since he had not yet voted for the Executive VP position and that time his name was on the ballot.

Deighan asked CRO Pat Curley to look into the matter.

“When I was told about this I checked into the matter and signed into voting about 30 times and each time the candidate’s name came up,” Curley claimed. The chronological print out of votes cast, which he reviewed after the

Vote for Executive VP

a

election indicated an even spread of votes cast for each candidate, suggesting that no candidate was left off the list for a lengthy period of time, Curley added.

However, Deighan said that on Thursday night another student informed him that his name did not appear on her choices for Executive VP. “This means that the problem persisted throughout the entire voting period,” he said.

The possibility exists that some candidates may have been left off some ballots sporadically, instead of all ballots for a certain period of time. The reliability of the electronic voting system is questionable, as there were other glitches in the electronic voting process as well. Curley told the Cadre that numerous complaints were filed with him at the end of the election. Some graduating students could not vote for valedictorian early in the election, but Pat Curley informed Computer Services

which was able to fix the problem by updating the list of students who have appliedto graduate.

“Tf there were problems we apologize but we are not responsible for computer glitches and computer services did their best to help us with problems,” Curley explained.

This response is not enough for Deighan, who feels the situation merits are-vote for the position of Executive VP.

“In no way do I think it is possible to suggest that such a phenomenon might not have drastically affected the outcome of the elections in regards to the position of Executive VP. The result has been a technical- electronic glitch creating a bias against the chances of me winning this election. As such, I think that it is only reasonable

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