THE FACULTY of Arts and Letters (AB) Commission on Elections (Comelec) is expecting a higher voter turnout of 75 percent due to the revert from manual to automated system of voting and canvassing this coming central and local student council elections.
“We believe that this year’s elections will be less time consuming compared from last year since we are using an automated system. So the switch from manual elections to EVoSys (Electronic Voting System) could increase the total voter turnout not just in AB but in the entire Thomasian community,” AB Comelec Chairperson Ayla-Rhey Salapare told the Flame.
Comelec’s expected 75 percent would be 2,351 students out of the 3,135 Artlets enrolled this semester as showed in the data from the Office of the Registrar.
Last year’s voter turnout stood at 57.86 percent or 2,263 voters out of 3,911 Artlets, data from the AB Comelec revealed.
In a press conference held March 8, UST Central Comelec launched the EvoSys which was developed by the UST Computer Science Society.
“Our goal is to establish a safe, secure, and a reliable online electronic voting system capable of collecting, storing and canvassing votes from the university-wide student council elections to minimize the issues of limited manpower, extensive canvassing time, and costing experience during manual elections,” Central Comelec chairperson Arvin Bersonda said.
During the voting period, each student must present his/her identification card to the verifier from the Comelec. The verifier will confirm whether a student is enrolled for this semester and is eligible to vote.
Through the new system, students would vote via the EVoSys website at the Faculty’s computer laboratory. Each student would be given an EVoSys account and a unique, randomly-generated password by the Comelec. The website for the software would only be accessible to computers within the University.
Students will vote first for the local polls and will be directed to the ballot for the Central Student Council. After voting, a summary of the student’s vote shall appear before uploading the ballot into the system. Students can backtrack if they wanted to change their vote.
The voting period will be from April 16 to 21. The Canvassing of votes and proclamation of winners will also be on April 21. F
