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Despite the technical disruptions and inconveniences, the College of Social Sciences and Philosophy Student Council (CSSPSC) Elections pushed through, Feb. 24. Around 9 am, a university-wide system disruption occurred. A power surge in the CSSP computer laboratory followed at around 11 am.
According to the people-in-charge of the voting, a brownout occurred and the computers shut down while there were students voting. But these students were given new sets of passwords to be able to vote again.
Another brownout occurred at Palma Hall Annex (PHan), where Psychology students were voting. It lasted for about thirty minutes. This made the line of voters to build up even if only a few students were voting.
Joe-Mar Perez, member of PEERS, said that several CAL students voted at the CSSP comp lab because of the internet disruption at CAL New Building (CNB). A member of the CAL election team said that around 10 am, they had an internet disruption, and they advised several students to vote in other colleges.
“Kaunti lang naman ung naapektuhan, 17 lang. Karamihan kasi sa mga students nasa mga klase nila,” the person-in-charge said.
The internet connection at CAL was restored at 12 noon.
Meanwhile, with the current process of voting, the turnouts were not counted. According to the people-in-charge at PHan Computer Laboratory, they decided in a meeting at the College of Engineering to focus on the reults more than the turnouts. In addition, the current process made the counting inconvenient, and they only counted upon special request.
In the current system, students would go to the voting stations to with their IDs or Form 5s and get their passwords from the people-incharge.
They would log on to the Halalan site with their ID number and acquired password. From there, they would check the candidates they want to vote and confirm with a CAPTCHA, a security password to ensure that the user is human and not a computer, before they submit their ballots.
Once the CAPTCHA has been typed, the votes cannot be changed. With this process, turnouts cannot be counted manually.
Overall, the 2010-2011 elections ran smoothly and new council members were elected.
Article by: Jane Fabula
