USG unveils new election software

“As a result of the helpful survey responses, we’ve identified a small modification to Helios’ interface that we can make to reduce confusion during the encryption process,” Diemand-Yauman said in his e-mail. “Aside from that concern, the voting and tallying went off without a hitch. This successful test bodes well for another smooth election next week when it really counts for the Class of 2013.”

The Helios system was designed “with security and verifiability from the very beginning” and was adapted for the University over the summer by USG information technology (IT) chair Michael Yaroshefsky ’12, Diemand-Yauman said.

The USG began looking to update its election system last year in an effort to reform the election process after a series of fiascos involving election and referenda results.

In April 2008, confusion arose over changes in the election process for U-Councilors when neither voters nor candidates were informed of changes in the voting process before voting began.

In November 2008, the USG announced that it was looking into the legitimacy of its online election system after it was found that USG members were able to view the lists of students who had cast ballots and could potentially alter the outcome of the election without leaving a trace.

During a December 2008 election, an error in the USG election’s online ballot system prevented voters from submitting their ballots for the first hour of voting. The election site had to be shut down until the problem was fixed, then-USG president Josh Weinstein ‘09 said in an e-mail explaining the voting issues to the student body.

This past May, Class of 2012 senator Becca Lee vacated her seat five months into her term after it was discovered that the election system had failed to count hundreds of votes. Yaroshefsky, it turned out, won the most votes in the Class of 2012 senate election, but he decided to remain IT chair, the position to which he was appointed after being denied the senate seat. Lee regained her seat on May 31 through an application process.

That month also saw the release of false results for a referendum on the student perception of University administrators. While the initial results stated that 68 percent of undergraduates approved or strongly approved of “the way top-level administrators ... have been running Princeton,” the corrected results knocked this figure down to 45 percent.

In his e-mail, Diemand-Yauman said the USG hopes that its new system will help it streamline the election process and avoid the pitfalls of the past two years.

“The USG is proud to be launching our new election system,” he said. “We are determined to launch Helios without a hitch.”