March 10, 2009

Online voting can’t work at ConU

by Sebastien Cadieux

Thanks to technology, students can avoid long lines and manage their academic lives, even under the pressure of difficult schedules. They can also register for classes, buy books, pay student fees and take courses without leaving the comfort of their homes.

With the Concordia Student Union electoral season upon us, the argument could be made to extend this digital convenience to student elections.

This would be sorely needed.

Only 11 per cent of Concordia undergraduate students voted in last year’s election, a turnout the CSU executive proudly proclaimed as “high.”

With only an 11 per cent participation rate, the state of democracy at our school is dismal.

When other Canadian schools like the University of Ottawa—a school with nearly as many students as Concordia—have moved their elections online, they have seen turnout records shattered. The University of Victoria has even seen campaigning go paper-free, by moving to the web in an effort to become more sustainable.

The unfortunate truth, however, is that this is a bad idea for Concordia. In the past few weeks alone, CSU councillors’ email accounts have been hacked and sensitive documents have been leaked.

During one of the two Council meetings held on March 5, a motion was passed to “rectify weakness within the electoral process,” adding additional security for the transportation and tallying of ballots. Although the most important part of it—giving partial jurisdiction to the Dean of Students’ office—was removed from the motion, it reinforced the electoral procedures that have been questioned in recent years due to various issues surrounding the security of student ballots.

We need to see more than one consecutive year of student politics that isn’t riddled with backdoor dealings, shady coalitions and broken promises of transparency before we can enjoy the convenience of e-voting. Until then, three days with limited hours and high voter apathy is all that Concordia students will, and can, get at the polling booth.