Seniors voting for members of the Senior Executive Committee next month will be able to cast their votes on-line using their personal computers for the first time ever, in a process that may be used for this spring's student elections.
Tom Caputo '96, who helped develop the idea of on-line voting at Dartmouth, said students will be able to vote at a site on the World Wide Web. In past elections, voting was done on paper ballots through the Hinman Post Office.
The World Wide Web site will contain a ballot, which students can use to cast their votes by checking off boxes adjacent to candidates' names, Caputo said.
Caputo said students who wish to vote will have to enter their BlitzMail names and passwords to ensure they are authentic Dartmouth students. This will also prevent students from voting twice, he said.
But the voting will still be like it is on a secret ballot. The passwords, Caputo said, will be immediately forgotten and are only used for authentification purposes.
"Paper ballots and dozens of candidates add up to a lot of work," for vote tabulators, said Associate Director of Student Activities Linda Kennedy, who is the chair of the Executive Committee election advisory results .
To guarantee that all seniors have an easy opportunity to vote in the Executive Committee election, Caputo said the election committee will set up a computer in the Collis Center for one day of the election period so seniors can vote from there.
The elections for the Senior Executive Committee, which guides the senior class through their first five years as alumni, will be held on Feb. 5 and Feb. 6.
