On the afternoon of April 7, senior elections commissioners Jenny Zhang, Kevin Mu, Karthik Annaamalai and Grace Kim and junior Varsha Ramesh thought that the results of the ASB elections were done, and they were ready to announce the results.

But then information began to emerge that the online voting system may have been tampered with. The evidence about whether this happened was unclear, but it was enough for the commission to re-do the entire election the old-fashioned way: by in-class voting.

The incident illustrates the difficulty in trying to hold a fair and convenient election at a time when technology is easy to use but also easy to interfere with.

“We saw numerous votes coming from same IP address,” said Mu. “In order to make sure that the votes were fair we decided to have a paper ballot election as well.”

While the online elections are more efficient, moving the elections online caused a lower percentage of students to end up voting for their future ASB leaders but this lack of participation was not a primary concern for the elections committee.

“Elections tend to end up being based on popularity and not actually based on skill,” said Mu. “By moving them online, people who actually cared ended up voting.”

While the commission tried to make the elections more efficient, the online voting results actually ended up showing some discrepancies.

The commission hopes to resolve the problems with the online voting in time for future elections. By doing so future, they hope they will have an easier time calculating votes and ensuring that elections are not simply popularity contests.

“I personally prefer voting online; it’s easier and faster,” said Sutardja. “However, in order to ensure a legitimate vote, we need to change how students are verified and how the votes are recorded.”