CHANGE: ASB advisor Vanessa Douty and Poly High School students discuss the shift from online voting to in-class Scantron ballot voting for ASB elections.
By Birdy Jones, Staff Writer
For several years, Poly ASB handled elections in a particular way: holding an interest meeting, distributing packets of campaign guidelines, covering the campus with banners and flyers and beginning online voting. Though there are always complaints regarding the online voting process, ASB never thought to go back to its old ways of using paper ballots to count votes. That is, until January of 2014.
It all started in late 2013 when ASB began discussing ways to ensure that the online voting process was conducted in an ethical manner. ASB considered guidelines to prevent having more than one vote come from a single mobile device, eliminating the possibility of “cheating” in an election. The discussion turned when the idea to switch to paper ballot voting was proposed. ASB then decided that it would be easier to monitor Scantron ballots. “The primary reason for the change in voting was twofold: to increase the ethical practice of voting and to increase student participation in the voting process,” Douty stated.
Next year’s ASB President, Mae Johnson (11), feels that the change from online voting to in-class Scantron ballot voting is a positive one: “I like the new voting system. It gets more students involved, and student involvement in elections is something we’ve been lacking.” In regards to the students running for office, Johnson’s motto is “More votes for you! If you campaign harder, you’re basically guaranteed to get more votes.”
In agreement with Johnson’s views on the new voting system, Simon Lockard (10) feels that the Scantron method grants everybody the opportunity to vote, since it occurs during class. As an individual who lost both his freshman and sophomore elections, Lockard heard about the new voting system and decided to give it another shot. As the idiom goes, the third time was the charm for Lockard, and he feels that he owes it to the new voting system: “For the past two years, my votes were being cut short. The people that I ran against my freshman and sophomore year had friends who had smart phones and access to the internet, which my friends didn’t have,” Lockard continued, “Paper ballots gave the entire school the ability to vote and gave each candidate a fair shot at winning.”
Kaelyn Sabal-Wilson (11) has supported her friends in ASB elections for three years and feels that the new voting method is much better. When asked why, Sabal-Wilson admitted an issue she had with online voting: she often forgot to vote. With the new method, Sabal-Wilson expressed that Scantron ballots force her to vote because she’s given the opportunity to do so during class. “If it weren’t for the paper ballots, I probably wouldn’t vote,” Sabal-Wilson stated.
With all of this positive feedback, some may wonder whether there are any downsides to the new voting system. Douty explains that the only disadvantages of switching from online voting to paper voting are that the latter is far more time consuming to organize and count and that there is also an increased cost in purchasing the ballots each year, as opposed to paying for the online voting service.
In Belen Martinez’s (11) opinion, the increased time spent organizing elections and the increased cost in purchasing Scantron ballots are not the only downsides to this change in the voting process. While Martinez appreciates the concept of Scantron ballot voting and its attempt to increase student involvement, she feels that not all students have integrity, which opens the door for cheating. Martinez explained how the current rules state that people can only vote for candidates in their class grade; however, she pointed out that there is nothing in the current system stopping students from voting for people in other classes. Martinez expressed, “I thought moving to ballots would be a positive change, but since it was a Scantron ballot that included numbers next to each person’s name, as opposed to a paper ballot with names to be circled on it, elections became a competition of ‘who knew whose number on the scantron?’ which may have allowed people in diverse grades to vote for candidates that were not in their class.” Martinez expressed that she would prefer to go back to online voting because she felt it was less scandalous.
While Yadira Schrom (11) prefers the Scantron method, she feels that the process could be more efficient: “I don’t want to go back to online voting, but I feel that there needs to be some sort of identification for Scantron ballot voting to ensure that there is no cheating.”
Although some miss the process of using their cell phones and the internet to obtain votes in their elections, the days of online voting are over. While Douty makes it clear that online voting is far more time efficient for both the ASB class and herself, ASB will continue to use Scantron ballots for elections. It remains to be seen whether improvements will be made to prevent the dishonesty in Scantron ballot voting.