SRC: EC Should Make Public Electoral Procedures
Photo by Oh Chin Eng
The upcoming Student Representative Committee (SRC) nominees would be voted by using e-voting (Electronic Voting) here at Universiti Tunku Abdul Rahman (UTAR) Kampar.
E-Voting has been in existence since the 1960’s, when it was first introduced as a punched card system.
To briefly introduce the e-voting in UTAR Kampar campus, e-voting provides an interface that is systematic, more efficient to ballot, and environmental friendly as it requires less paper compared to conventional balloting with paper.
However early this year in 2010, University of Malaya (UM) students held a protest opposing e-voting as they question its credibility and reliability as it is by machine while critics said the polling result could be hacked and modify the results.
In order to answer the question whether e-voting is credible, J-On consulted deputy dean and lecturer of Faculty of Arts and Social Science (FAS) department of Journalism, Chiok Phaik Fern.
Chiok has her masters in political science and in addition she has been around and aware of the past three SRC elections.
According to Chiok conventional balloting and e-voting’s credibility and reliability has the same amount of doubt.
“Even the conventional means of balloting would not be free from rigging the results as those who are involved in the ballot counting could be dishonest,” said Chiok.
“E-voting is just a process to vote just like conventional voting and even e-voting can be rigged as it’s just a matter whether the IT software programmer has foreseen any flaws and made it foolproof,” added Chiok.
The Election Committee (EC) plays a crux in approving the potential candidates such as academic performance, good behavior, active in clubs and societies and other relevant criteria.
Bear in mind, all this would be pointless if students are not informed or allowed to know what grounds candidates are rejected or approved.
“The EC should be impartial when it comes to the assessment of candidates, and approve candidates who meet the criteria and make it publicly known the criteria these candidates are being approved on,” said Chiok.
According to Chiok, results of approved candidates that are not made publicly known could be misconstrued as allegedly being in favor of the EC instead of the candidate’s criteria.
“And to counter-check the EC credibility, the public could ask for the EC’s procedures to be made publicly known,” said Chiok.
