COLLEGE OF ARTS AND SCIENCES – The college did it again, not only once but thrice.

Students here experienced e-Election during the synchronized Student Council (SC) voting, June 21, with the help of the advisers of the CAS-based organizations, Department of Computer Science (DCS), CAS Comelec, and selected members of the Computer Science Society (ComSoc). The software was developed by James Patrick A. Acang, DCS faculty member.

The genesis of the e-Election system

e-Election is not new at CAS. The college has been using such system since 2009. At present, it has three versions: precinct-based, centralized, and e-Election system 3.0.

Version 1.0 or the precinct-based arrangement was used in 2009. In this setup, students voted in workstations organized per degree program. These workstations were independent, thus the need to create another level of the voting process – post counting.  In this level, all election results from each precinct were consolidated manually to determine the actual results.  One problem of this version was on voter checking. Since each voter workstation housed the same independent databases, flying voter-related problem likely occurred.  However, this was avoided through the concerted efforts of the college COMELEC.

In 2011, version 2.0 was launched. This was known for its centralized structure.  All votes were sent to a single server machine which stored information coming from voters as well as housed the election database of the voter workstations. Like version 1.0, this system also had flaws. First, casting of votes was done by schedule due to the limited number of computers. Second, since the service slots of the system’s server were limited, some voter workstations were automatically disconnected by the server to optimize the performance of other clients.  In this set-up, the voting time was longer because of the limited workstations.  Also, since the system only used the student number (which is prone to typo errors) to authenticate users, some of the students who have not voted yet were tagged to have done so.

The new e-Election system

The new MMSU CAS e-Election System 3.0 was developed to solve flaws on the network traffic and voter’s workflow. Enhancements on the user interface were done to the previous version for faster casting of votes.  Moreover, the system’s server was designed to handle n number of clients/workstations simultaneously to further shorten the overall voting time.    Handling vote records was also improved to avoid disconnection of clients.  This version accommodated the use of communication technologies such as the WIFI (Wireless Fidelity). This paved the way for a fast and seamless voting experience.

During the casting of votes, a student was given a computer generated voter’s ID and security code.  These authentication keys were used to access the voter’s electronic ballot.  The voter’s profile including his/her vote was sent to the system’s central server for storing.  These data were fetched after the voting proper.

Students’ assessment of the system

The e-Election system surprised the freshmen. Despite the heavy rain, many endured the long lines for them to experience how to vote online. “This computerized election is faster than the normal election system. The work of the election officers is easy. We are exposed to a modern way of voting. We don’t have to write the name of the candidate. We just click it,” said Eizel B. Ramos, BS Mathematics I student.

Princess Khey Agbayani, ABES IV, said the validity of votes was ensured through the e-voting system. Yet, she observed that there were longer lines in this year’s election.

“Everybody was excited to take part in the election and almost all were determined to vote in the morning though casting of votes was until 3 p.m. Nevertheless, we have noted the problems. Next year, we will be providing more laptops and polling precincts for every degree program.” said Prof. Ciriaco Ragual, the college student activities coordinator.

CAS-SC’s new set of officers

Dane Mikhael Calica, BS Biology IV, leads the CAS studentry this AY 2012-2013. A former president of the best academic organization (Bio Circle) of the university, Calica is determined to make CAS SC the best this academic year. “Today, CAS students are not one. CAS, I believe, is divided. Some students do not trust the SC anymore. I need to heal the grudges between and among us, unify CAS, and prove that the SC is indeed the students’ voice,” he said.

The other officers are:   Joshua Anthony Agustin, vice president; Sean Benjamin Arce, secretary; Nella Manangan, assistant secretary; Cheris-Maeh Carnete, treasurer; Monique  Joyce Gonzales, assistant treasurer; Jeri May Angel, auditor; Jordan Fiesta, business manager; Jean Maryu Talavera, PIO; John Paul Felipe and Rona Christine Pulundi, athletic managers; and Cesar Viloria Jr., Allan Josef Glova, Christian Simon,  and Marvin de los Santos, levels I-IV representative.

The voter’s turn out was 74.23 percent, a laudable figure despite the downpour brought by typhoon Dindo.