Unlike Associated Students Inc. elections, there are no set regulations for online student fee referendums, including the recent Beach Legacy Referendum, campus officials said Wednesday.
When it comes to online voting, “you’re going to find there’s no way to get your arms around [the process],” said Doug Robinson, vice president of student services at Cal State Long Beach.
The two-day online vote that began Wednesday was run through a web-based platform called BigPulse, the same platform used in last spring’s Associated Students Inc. elections.
“[ASI elections are] very, very different than the referendum,” Robinson said.
Jeane Caveness, the assistant dean of students, said that campaign regulations are the same as those used in last spring’s ASI election.
“If they want to organize, that would be allowed,” Caveness said of anyone on campus wanting to schedule events, pass out fliers and campaign — as long as they get approval from her or Robinson. “[The campaign rules are] very similar to AS elections.”
She said via e-mail, “There are no other campus regulations that specifically address elections. The ASI has an Election Handbook, which is updated annually by the ASI Board of Elections.”
But student referendums are not officially subject to these ASI regulations.
ASI’s 2009 Election Handbook states that “On election day, candidates are permitted to continue campaigning. However, candidates may not campaign in the immediate vacinity of someone who may be voting or about to vote. This includes all campus computer labs.”
According to Robinson, any student can vote on the referendum anywhere in the world, as long as they have Internet access and their student ID. Links to BigPulse were sent out to students’ email accounts in the past few days.
The athletics department provided a place for students to vote on the BLR in the Ukleja Hall of Honor, located in the Walter Pyramid.
Wayne Stickney, the development coordinator for the athletics department, said that the area — which had 10 computers, free food, and students and athletics department employees sitting next to the computers — did not constitute an official polling place. He described it as “an unofficial place where we have computers set up.”
CSULB President F. King Alexander defined an online polling place as “wherever you have a computer.”
“[In online voting] there are no traditional polling places,” Robinson said.
Next to many of the computers in the Pyramid were fliers advertising a voting night party that had “Vote YES on BLR” printed on them.
Some students have expressed that the ongoing voting event in the Pyramid goes against ethical standards for student elections.
Marcos Lopez, a Chicano studies major and member of the Advocates for CSULB, said his group decided not to set up their own place for students to vote at.
“We think people will be able to make the right choice based on the facts,” Lopez said.
Lopez also said he still feels the athletics department shouldn’t have a “biased” voting area for students.
Although there were posters inside and outside of the Pyramid encouraging students to vote “yes” on the BLR, Stickney said athletics officials were not trying to influence how students ultimately voted. Stickney said he saw a few students voting “no” as he looked on over their shoulders.
As of Wednesday night, Alexander said he was “not aware of any violations.”
“If coercion is used,” he said, “that’s when we’re worried.”
Alexander also said that he had heard of professors encouraging their students to vote “no,” and that there is no way to know how many other similar voting events have taken place.
“People don’t have to vote [at the Pyramid],” he said.
ASI Treasurer Brian Troutner, a member of the Student Fee Advisory Committee, said setting online voting regulations are “difficult.”
“We had [regulations] in place [for ASI elections] that you couldn’t have your own polling place,” he said, “it could be considered unfair.”
Troutner recommended students should go to “non-partisan” polling places, since students can vote from any computer with Internet access.
Troutner said he would bring up the issue of online voting regulations for future referendums in the next Student Fee Advisory Committee meeting. The next meeting is scheduled for April 10 at 8 a.m. in the USU.
Christopher Chavez, ASI vice president, also said he would bring up the issue at the next Student Advisory Committee meeting.
“It definitely is something that needs to be looked into,” Troutner said.
On regulating the athletics department’s event, Robinson said, “The only reason for us to take exception is if people are being coerced into voting.”
Mike Plaza and Joanne Tucker contributed to this article.
test
Your name,
We have included a direct quote from the ASI Election Handbook. Hopefully it will make it a little more clear as to how the two processes (ASI elections and fee referendums) are different. We intend to talk to professors on campus more at a more in-depth level about the differences between the two process and the lack of explicit regulations for fee referendums. Once we put that information into a separate story, we will provide a link to it at the end of this story.
Thank you for pointing out the need for clarification, and please do not hesitate to do so again in the future.
“Your name
Sat Mar 14 2009 19:16
I fail to see the difference between a lack of regulations for referendum voting and rules for online ASI elections in this article. It’s all the same by your description. Can you please explain the differences?”
The difference isn’t quite clear. Doug Robinson says that the two elections are very different, but Jean Cavenes says there is no difference. From the Daily Forty Niner’s understanding, the rules and regulations are different because ASI elections are official elections, majority rules. The referendum election is more of an advisory poll, to see how students feel about increasing fees for athletics. If you have any further questions, please e-mail [email protected].
I just didn’t like that when I went to the pyramid to vote, some rude girl involved in athletics YELLED at me coming in saying, “IF YOU AINT VOTIN YES YOU BETTA GET OUT OF HERE”
… so I voted no.
I fail to see the difference between a lack of regulations for referendum voting and rules for online ASI elections in this article. It’s all the same by your description. Can you please explain the differences?
They should have known Friday the 13th isn’t a good day for an election. It’s not going to be a good night for BITCH basketball either. Must suck to be you CSULB. So much for that national little girls soccer championship, where everybody gets a trophy. Looooooosers!!!!!
Angry Alumi, it looks like the only thing you got right was knowing how to count to ten. I bet it took you both hands and feet to count that high. “Tenth, this will pass” ROFLMAO, good luck on the bringing football plan too, Jason.
To “angry alumni”: When I turn on a TV, the first thing I end up seeing is skyrocketing unemployment, California’s budget crisis, the economy in the crapper. I don’t see “COLLEGE SPORTS SO IMPORTANT WE WIN FOOTBALL”. Also, I don’t think you’re a alumnus, enjoy your lack of a fee hike.
your name, my name: Few points…First off, don’t assume you know who this is because you have no idea. Plus, I was fired up…so of course there would be some errors…that being said…Second, your ass is still in school so you have NO clue how it really is. Yes, YALE, MIT, CAL TECH, those schools are private institutions that have been around for 100 years or more, so yeah, of course they’ll have a good reputation. Our school has barely hit the half century mark. I don’t want to wait 100 years until someone finds us respectful. Third, it’s not “periods”…it’s Ellipsis…jerk off. Fourth, how many times do you see anything on television saying “oh yeah, Cal State Long Beach just won Best Engineering Project in California”…NONE…NEVER…and if you’re ACTUALLY looking for it, then just maybe. Fifth, i’m not saying that athletics is going to solve all problems, it’s merely a WINDOW to our university. I’m sure half you people are sports fans, and you always see or here about UCLA Basketball or USC Football no matter how many times you flip the channel. This, to the curious average person, will DIVE into our university, to figure out WHAT WE ARE ALL ABOUT….what’s the harm in that? It’ll make the university more desirable. Since when “cheap” = “quality” in education? Last I heard in the past 100 years “expensive” = “quality”…look it up…i’m sure you’ll find tuition rates from those schools quite different from ours…even with this ‘GIGANTIC’ raise in tuition. Sixth, When the University of Pacific went to the NCAA Tournament for Basketball two years in a row and went as far as the Sweet 16, their application and enrollment doubled because more people were exploring the university website trying to figure out where UOP was…and they’re a good school, but most people wouldn’t have known that if it wasn’t for the WINDOW of Athletics. Seventh, the New York times and you didn’t find one sports story…just wait 3 weeks…it’ll be plastered all over the news and newspapers. Proven fact. Happens every year whether you want to find out or not. Eight, don’t talk about ahtletes are “stupid.” If you want to generalize,then ALL college kids are stupid, but not YOU, of course not. We’re not generalizing or anything. Ninth, Angry Alumn, Alumni,who gives a rats ass…my point is across and you can’t even think up of a witty name..thumbs up to you…and you think i’m this person named “jason aula”….you know what, that takes a lot of balls of you to call out somebody who isn’t even writing this, and you wont even reveal “your name”…coward. Tenth, this will pass, if you want to leave this school because it passes,,,go ahead…leave to another school that is MORE expensive (even if this does pass this school is STILL inexpensive). I’m pretty sure “Jason Aula” wont miss you since you called him a troll…haha…
tes
Look closely at the photo with this story. If our athletes are so stupid they can’t figure out this ballot without having two people show them where the Yes box is, more money isn’t going to help the program — unless they spend it on books and tutors.
Oh and by the way, “alumni” is plural, so unless you’re more than one person, maybe you shouldn’t post under that name, lest you continue to reveal your own idiocy.
angry alumni — Where did you learn that periods always had to come in threes? You should have been studying instead of going to all those sports games.
I just opened my New York Times and there wasn’t one university sports story on the front page. Hmmm.
angry alumni aka Jason Aula, you’re not an alumni yet, you little troll. Tell all of that crap to Princeton and MIT, the schools that graduate the highest paid alumni in the U.S. clown. It’s not because of their women’s soccer teams either. You really think women’s soccer is going to make you nationally recognized? Open a textbook moron. At least buy a dictionary because your future employers are going to want you to be able to spell English words.
everyone shut up…i’m a recent alumni and I don’t want to feel like i graduated from a school and claim it as “the most affordable school”..i’m sure future employers won’t that very attractive…after it’s said and done, despite this increase in funds, it’s STILL one of the most affordable schools…this will only make us better…i don’t want any “joe schmo” going to my school…it devalues everything i learned at CSULB…reality is…if it’s “more expensive” it automatically has higher value no matter how much you want to cut it…lie to yourself all you want….plus, if you even turn on a TV…the reason why most people about YOUR school IS because of athletics…do you think the average person across the street from you gives a crap about how many awards the department has won in a contest no one has heard about? of course not….get it through your heads people…this is good for us….for alumni…current students…and future alumni….the only reason why people think UCLA is so good is because they’re on TV all the time because of their athletics which spearheaded their whole popularity…and THAT leads into the other important academic things on campus…..we can be the best academic school in the west coast…but we will still be the the toilet paper in everyone’s bathroom if we don’t know how to play the PR game….
G0 Beach; Our administrators will soon find out that just because they can manipulate a voting system, they won’t be noticed for their lack of prudence. Just because there were no rules in this wild and wooly contest doesn’t mean they shouldn’t have ensured and guaranteed the ethics this institution claims to hold so dear were adhered to. The same can be said for the wimpy SFAC members that refused to make sure EVERYTHING was on the up and up. What a group of tools.
Mike: did the candidate lean over your shoulder while you were voting to make sure you checked the right box? Were you surrounded in the garage by a raucous crowd of people supporting what you wanted to vote against? In the real world it’s a federal crime to campaign within 100 feet of a polling place. Is that how voting was conducted in the Pyramid? Hell no. Even in somebody’s garage, there is a poll watcher to make sure everything is legitimate. The only ones watching this poll were jocks making sure people voted to pass jock stuff. There will certainly an investigation and new policies in the future, even if this passes. This was blatant abuse of a new system. I would encourage CSULB students to demand the return of physical voting places to ensure there is oversight of ethical and legal standards. Hopefully, this will end up being challenged in court for the civil and human rights violations on state property. Somebody could win a pile of money with an ambitious and hungry attorney.
In an online election where students can vote ANYWHERE they want, there is no official polling place. What’s wrong with the pro-blr crowd organizing an area for their supporters to vote? Who’s saying that you’re required to vote at the pyramid? if the anti-blr camp cared enough about this issue to organize a place where its supporters could vote, this measure wouldnt stand a chance of passing. if the blr passes, the anti-blr crowd only has itself to blame for not caring enough to organize a movement far ahead of time.
I voted in my community last year for a bond issue to improve the local schools in the area. My voting place was a school that would get the money. As for food in the polling place, so many times I have voted at a house or a garage that had donughts etc…..
Improve your university and your future by voting YES ON BLR
The SFAC turned their heads on everything ethical on this one. No wonder that the committee is also the executive officers of the ASI. Nothing like double dipping. ASI leaders jumped on the committee to protect themselves from public scrutiny by the only rule involved in this comedy of errors: you may not comment to the media about the BLR. Of course they should have been able to speak out as a responsibility to their oath of office. Remember, Swetland, Chavez and Troutner were elected to ASI BEFORE they were placed on the SFAC. Great campus representation ASI. Robinson “advises” them as ASI and SFAC. Did you really expect ethics was going to be involved anywhere in this campaign? Take the money and run before you end up in Madoff’s shoes. There should be a legal investigation from top to bottom.
What a farce. Instructors canceling classes and force marching their students to the Pyramid IS COERCION. People looking over your shoulder while you vote is COERCION. Having campaign material, food and beverages, running related looping videos and offering student paid celebrations and parties for those who promise to favor your item is COERCION. King And Robinson steered this group of villains through every loophole while COERCING the Student Fee Advisory Committee to look the other way. I was offended to see all of the happy athletics photos when I opened my online ballot. It was screaming “Vote Yes” at me but I resisted. I was being COERCED. COERCION can be a perceived threat and the athletics sponsored party in the ‘Mid felt ominous. First the look you up and down to see if you might be a no voter, then they cheerfully welcome you to feel you out. I thought they were going to stick their hands in my pockets, which is essentially what they were doing anyway. Terrible display. The entire vote is scandalous. But we have no way to fight back
Its sad that journalists at this paper are so set on trying to define right and wrong. The polling place at the Pyramid is a place for anyone to vote. I saw no coercion. You do not have to go as a student. It looks like people who care about improving the school just want to make sure people know to vote …. at least people are voting, instead of being apathetic.