A critical consideration for anyone holding an election is the accessibility of that process to voters. It is essential that all members of a student society have a reasonable opportunity to vote. Election processes should be designed to serve, primarily, the voters. Student societies should strive to provide voters with the maximum opportunity to enable them to exercise their rights with the least possible inconvenience. U-elecT brings the voting booth to the voter and allows for every member to participate without trying to find the polling station and without standing in a line. It is a most effective means of improving voter turnout.
Student societies looking to increase student participation in their elections and referenda have access to a free, secure electronic voting module called U-elecT (https://voting.utoronto.ca). The current version of U-elecT has been in operation since February 2010, and has been successfully used by societies at the St. George and UTM campuses. U-elecT is a free system that provides a flexible and convenient method for student societies to self-manage their voting process online while increasing accessibility for students who may not be available during the polling station times because of academic, personal or employment commitments, but who want to participate in the elections and governance process of their student organization.
U-elecT is a tri-campus service available to all full-time and part-time student societies and groups, and has the capacity to serve approximately 100 student organizations at one time. To date, student organizations have used U-elecT for society elections, referenda regarding fee increases, by-law and constitutional changes, and council executive elections. The elections were all facilitated using U-elecT but run by the student societies directly, who did not have to worry about maintaining confidentiality of student records and data, printing ballots, setting up and staffing polling stations, and the counting and re-counting ballots.
U-elecT provides an easy method of both voting and managing the voting process, by allowing for a unique society administration interface to establish and manage the election and a separate interface for students to vote. Both systems are managed by the University’s UTORid system (so only registered students who are members of the society) can vote. The system generates voter lists while maintaining the integrity of the society’s election process and each administrative staff (i.e. the CRO) signs an agreement to ensure he/she also maintains the confidentiality of student information. Voter’s data is always kept separate from the actual vote data, so the anonymity of the voters is also maintained.
Students running for election can provide candidate statements that are available for students to view from within the voting module interface, so it’s easy to see who the candidates are and to vote for the candidate directly. Multiple voting, lost ballots, and miscounts are eliminated; the system also provides metrics directly to the student societies so election outcomes can be easily determined and quickly confirmed and announced. It is hoped that in the interests of democratic practice, all student organizations will move to adopting U-elecT. Assistance is available in setting up a U-elecT voting module from the Student Life or Student Affairs offices on all three campuses.