Cerritos College is looking to implement online voting for future presidential and student trustee elections that would go into effect next year. Chief Justice Alejandra Lopez said that if passed at next week’s ASCC Senate meeting, it could go into effect as early as Fall 2015.
The system would work with the company Simply Voting, and it is already being used on other campuses like Rio Hondo, California State University San Marcus and University of California Davis.
Simply Voting would work as an annual membership and if successful, it would continue to be used in the following years.
Simply Voting’s system works in three steps. 1. The Election Set-up 2. Voting and 3. Results.
Set-up is quick and would only take about two weeks, according to Lopez, who spoke with Simply Voting’s technical service. The voting would be done with students’ MyCerritos login to authenticate their votes and results would be available immediately after the polls close.
Lopez said, “It would bring in a lot more participation from students. It’s beneficial because we could easily use the MyCerritos site.”
Amna Jara, Student Activities Coordinator, said, “Maybe we could have online voting next year for senate [elections].”
Students that have night classes and might miss polling booths could also get involved with the possibility online voting.
She said that no more than 2,000 votes were counted last year and that was one of the bigger turnouts that she had seen.
Voting would be strictly online during the ongoing elections where it’s being implemented but Lopez still recommends candidates to set up booths with laptops for students to vote, as well as to remind students that there are elections going on and that they should vote.
Students could even vote through the web browsers on their phones if they have a smartphone available.
Costs for the system would be $6,000 for five elections, senate, homecoming court, homecoming queen, presidential and trustee elections. This charge would be annual and would continue for the next elections if it is successful.
Funding would come through the ASCC budget and it is set to be on next week’s budget to be voted on by ASCC Senate at next week’s meeting.
ASCC Senate meetings are held every Wednesday at 2 p.m. in BK 111 which is located east of the bookstore and across from the Game Room.
