As early as the spring of 1996, students may no longer have to contend with swarms of smiling candidates in front of the Collis Center on election day.
Instead, students will be able to vote for Student Assembly president and other elected student officials from the comfort of their own rooms over the College's computer network.
And for the first time in the College's history, elections for class officers will take place today over BlitzMail, the College's electronic-mail system.
Members of the Class of 1999 have until 9:00 tonight to vote for representatives to the Freshmen Council and Student Assembly. Freshmen should blitz their vote to their undergraduate adviser. The Freshmen Office will then tabulate the votes.
Each residence hall cluster will elect one or two representatives to the Freshmen Council, depending on the cluster's size. Each cluster will elect only one representative to the Student Assembly.
In this spring's Assembly elections, a program developed by Class of 1996 Vice President Tom Caputo could allow students to choose candidates using the World Wide Web browser Netscape.
The Netscape project would simplify the annual Spring term voting procedure, Caputo said. Specifically, students would be able to vote from any computer on campus, and the votes could be tallied in a number of minutes.
Students could review candidates and their platforms via Netscape, and then submit votes. Unlike voting via BlitzMail, the procedure would require no retyping.
Stanford University implemented a similar project last year.
The Stanford project directors said the project was "a big success," Caputo said. "There was a large voter turn out. They gave me much positive feedback."
But the Netscape proposal will "need many stamps of approval" before becoming a reality at Dartmouth, Caputo said.
Caputo is working on this project with Computing Services, the Student Activities Office and the Election Advisory Committee.
According to Director of Student Activities Tim Moore, the project "is just in its exploratory stages. Nothing has been decided yet."
"We're looking at its feasibility and reviewing everything over the next few weeks as to whether or not we can move ahead with it," Moore said.
The project would require significant support from Kiewit Computing Services. For instance, Kiewit would have to provide machines to run the software and consultants to help alleviate technical difficulties, Caputo said.
BlitzMail passwords would be used as markers, to ensure students vote only once.
"There are many security issues we have to deal with," Caputo said. "We have to protect BlitzMail passwords. Those will be sent in encrypted form."
Sara Clark '97, a freshman office intern, is in charge of tonight's BlitzMail election for Freshman Council.
Clark said BlitzMail ballots will be distributed to freshmen by their Undergraduate Advisors. Write-in candidates will be accepted for the Freshman Council elections, but not for the Assembly elections.
"E-mail is so easy that we're hoping to get more people to respond," Clark said.
According to Benjamin Guaraldi '99, "I think one of the main reasons you see such a limited voter turnout is because of inconvenience. If you did this [computerized election] more often, there would be greater participation," he said.
