In 2007, UF students Tommy Jardon and Sam Miorelli, both current leaders of the Orange and Blue Party, started to renew efforts to make online voting the norm for Student Government elections.
Their organization, Students for Online Voting (SOLVe), needed to collect signatures of at least 10 percent of the entire student body, which they did.
Then, according to the student constitution, they were "guaranteed the right to submit initiatives and referendums for ratification by the electorate." Specifically, the proposed amendment for online voting had to pass approval by 60 percent of the UF electorate.
Yet, we're not voting online because SOLVe hit a snag right before the referendum was placed on the spring 2008 ballot to be voted on by the students. The UF Supreme Court decided to review the constitutionality of the proposed amendment. Guess what? Turns out voting online, or voting any place outside of the privacy of a voting booth is, gasp, illegal.
I was shocked, too. To think that my last absentee ballot was suddenly unconstitutional made me sick to my stomach. The UF Supreme Court's lone and courageous dissenter, Justice John Campbell, argued that the court lacked the authority to even review the constitutionality of the referendum, and then for kicks went on to inform his judicial colleagues that online voting had been approved for national presidential primaries.
Campbell's dissent wasn't enough. Jardon and Miorelli's last hope was appealing to the vice president of Student Affairs' office.
A committee was promised to look into the issue, and was eventually delegated to what became a partisan group of SG members. Needless to say, the committee wasn't incredibly productive.
So, Jardon and Miorelli sued. They sued the UF administration, they sued SG and they sued the UF Supreme Court. If a fake court wouldn't follow the laws of logic and even legal precedence, then hopefully a real one could.
What's wrong with online voting? According to its dissenters, first it was unsecure, prone to Internet hackers.
Next, online voting would supposedly lead to voter coercion. But online voting, if ever allowed, would be accessed through a secure and encrypted server by use of a voter's Gator ID and password, the same process we trust for our grades and planning our course schedule. Privacy wise, Georgetown, Penn State, Duke, FSU and a host of other universities have not had privacy infringement issues.
They've just seen higher voter turnout.
That's what's wrong with online voting. If ever allowed, it would expand the electorate, making elections inherently more fair. Dissenters to online voting don't want to challenge the status quo. They, the Gator Party or its newest quasi-iteration, the Unite Party, want to win. They need the "I-Voted" stickers; they need bands of easy-to-please pledges collecting those stickers, gently reminding people who to vote for. They need a small electorate. They need your apathy.
They get it; they just don't want you to. That's how you win an election.
Matthew Christ is a political science freshman. His column appears on Mondays.
