Online ballots still controversial
Report shows some IP addresses cast many votes during USAC elections
Election Board officials for the undergraduate student government said last spring’s general election results were not compromised by bloc voting though election statistics released this week show several individual Internet Protocol addresses contributed numerous votes.
IP addresses alone will not determine if any suspicious activity took place during the elections because an individual IP address could serve a number of computers through an Internet router.
The statistics, which were compiled by College Information Services, show that 129 votes — or 2.3 percent of the total votes cast — came from an IP address correlated to a computer kiosk in Ackerman Union that was designated for voting. A second campus IP address was used to cast 88 votes, and three off-campus IP addresses contributed 25 or more votes.
The statistics do not necessarily mean students voted in concert.
Michael Cohn, the administrative representative to the Undergraduate Students Association Council’s Elections Board, said in some cases on-campus computers share IP addresses, making it impossible to determine if all votes associated with a particular address were cast at a single computer.
It is also uncertain whether any off-campus computer was used to cast a significant number of votes.
“We manage MyUCLA so the only information we know about the computers hosting browser sessions connected to MyUCLA is their IP addresses,” said Eric Splaver, the college computing director, in an e-mail Monday.
In the 2003 USAC election, an additional measure intended to curtail bloc voting was in place.
A second vote could not be cast from a single computer until a five minute period had expired. The measure was meant to discourage large groups from voting together.
But the council did not renew the rule for the 2004 election. Roy Samaan, the 2004 Election Board Chairman, said the delay was unnecessary and could have even impeded student voting.
Cohn believes bloc voting is not an issue to be concerned about and said instances of bloc voting have probably decreased because of online polling, which began at UCLA in the 2003 elections. “There were far more opportunities (for bloc voting) the way it used to be,” Cohn said regarding the time when paper ballots were used.
When students voted at on-campus polling locations student groups could provide incentives, such as free pizza, in exchange for votes, he said.Another aspect of voting during the 2004 elections that was different in the previous elections was that students were not able to vote between midnight and 7 a.m.
In a letter from the office of John Sandbrook, special assistant to the executive dean, written on behalf of College Information Services, it is recommended that the voting service be available for 24 hours a day, since all other MyUCLA services are available all day. The letter also states that it is in the best interest of student body since a considerable number had voted during the “no-access” times in the 2003 elections.



