Student sees cracks in voting process

Michael Sholars
Features and Opinions Editor
As a second-year Schulich student with a keen interest in student politics, Ruida Lu was eager to vote in the York Federation of Students (YFS) Schulich director elections March 17. By the end of the day, he had visited three separate polling stations, each using different methods to process his vote.
To examine what he saw as an inconsistency in voting procedure, Lu cast two separate votes – one in the Student Centre, and the other in the Fine Arts building – to see if anyone would notice.
Around 11 am Lu approached two poll clerks in the Student Centre. When he told them he was from Schulich, they checked his student card into the computer database and gave him the appropriate ballot.
Lu noticed that on the back of his ballot–where both poll clerks are supposed to initial before passing it to a voter–the space was blank.
When Lu pointed this out, his concerns were waved aside.
“I said, ‘Don’t you need to sign here?’ And they said, ‘It doesn’t matter.’”
Lu marked down his candidate of choice. but was concerned that his ballot would be invalid if it didn’t have their signatures on it.
“I didn’t want to waste my vote,” he said.
The poll clerks offered to sign the already-marked ballot, but Lu was not comfortable with this arrangement. He ultimately let them sign the ballot while he held onto it so the vote would not be compromised.
However, Lu still felt uncomfortable about the overall voting system, and decided to investigate further on his own.
“They were supposed to sign it before I got the ballot. I found that there were so many irregularities in the system. Either the staff is not trained well, or they intentionally do this,” he said.
Jeremy Salter, executive director of YFS, said the final counts were done properly.
“There were no ballots that didn’t have the signatures of both poll clerks on them […] there’s slight room for human error, but obviously the poll clerks caught it before the ballot was cast.”
At 3 pm later that day, Lu went to the polling station in the Fine Arts building. He said the poll clerks neglected to check his student card at a computer, and almost immediately handed him a valid Schulich ballot and a white envelope.
Though Lu left his ballot blank because he did not want to take advantage of a second vote, he was required to write his name and student number on the envelope holding his ballot – a procedure Salter cited as evidence of the system working.
“They put it in an envelope more than likely because it had come up on the voting system that he had already voted,” he said. “Any ballots that are put into an envelope when we do the count are reviewed; it’s a double blind test to make sure that people can’t vote twice.”
Both Salter and Rob Tiffin, VP students at York, said that issues of voting protocol needed to be addressed by the chief returning officer (CRO).
“It should be reported to the CRO to investigate,” said Tiffin. “It may be a training issue. It raises an area of concern.”
The CRO, Obinna Oraka, explained the lack of internet connection in the Fine Arts building could have been the reason Lu’s ballot was put inside an envelope in the Fine Arts building.
“The internet in Fine Arts hasn’t been working since the beginning of the year,” he said. “We just found that out when we got there. There’s no way I could have fixed the internet that hasn’t been working for a year just for the election.”
When Lu approached the polling station in the TEL building around 4 pm to attempt a third vote, he was told he had voted already.
While Lu was pleased this station was well-run, he expressed concern there may be inconsistency among the polling booths.
Oraka, like Salter, agreed the issue was an isolated incident, and is more a case of human error.
“Everybody is human. We’re not machines,” said Oraka. “Sometimes you have someone who has forgotten the training […] we train the poll clerks, and have to trust that they know their jobs.”
Salter questions Lu’s decision to investigate the matter personally and contact Excalibur.
“To me, that kind of indicates that the individual is not necessarily concerned with how the voting system took place, but is attempting to undermine the democratic processes on our campus.”
Despite this, Lu still believes in student government; he vowed that he would still continue to vote every year.
“We are students, we should be responsible,” he said. “Every student government should be responsible, and everyone should get involved and make this thing work.”