New Online Voting System to Be Used in a Limited Capacity for CASA Elections

Students That Would Unavailable to Vote In Person, Will Use My Vote System

NewsVince Morello — Published February 12, 2017

The test was held with 37 people, which included the CASA Board of Directors, committee presidents and co-presidents.

After a four-hour discussion between the Board and John Molson students, a motion was passed to only have students abroad, or who were otherwise unavailable to vote in person, be able to register to vote online.

“There were a lot of board members that were disappointed the fact that the board had made the decision to implement the system at the previous meeting based on a test,” said Rory Blaisdell, an independent director at CASA, and the person who pitched the My Vote system, along with CASA VP Academics, Shaumia Suntharalingam.

“People argued that it wasn’t a big enough population to sample, but then that should have been brought up at the board meeting,” he added.

The deadline to register for online voting was on Feb. 9, but the Chief Returning Officer of the CASA elections, Omar Riaz, could not publically release the amount of students that registered.

In order to register, students had to send their full name, student ID number and a picture of their student ID card to the CRO. Students who vote online agree to their vote not being private.

In order to avoid students voting online and in person, the CRO will only count the vote that was made in person.

A referendum asking students whether or not they want online voting was discussed for the upcoming elections, but it will not appear on the ballot box this year, according to Riaz.

“I think some good points were brought up at the meeting regarding things like referendums,” said Blaisdell, although he added that he thinks because the Board had been elected by students, that they should be able to represent their interests.

“I think it’s a lot better for us to have a discussion about the pros and the cons, on how to make the system better, how to prevent the weaknesses, how to fix the weaknesses, and then vote on it on behalf of the students,” he added.

The discussion to have an online voting system was prompted after 470 students voting during the 2016 CASA general elections.