March 10, 2008
U. of Florida Students Sue to Hold Online Student-Government Elections
Florida is notorious for its election snafus. Who can forget the 2000 presidential race, when Palm Beach County’s butterfly ballot caused residents to miscast their votes, and the question of who would be president seemed to hinge on how officials counted “hanging chads”? Then, of course, there’s the current dust-up about whether Floridians should be allowed another chance to vote in the Democratic presidential primary after their January votes were deemed meaningless by the Democratic National Committee.
Now it appears that the state’s election woes extend to student-government elections, too. A group of students at the University of Florida is suing the university and its student government in an effort to allow students to vote online, according to articles in student newspapers of the University of Central Florida and the University of Florida. The articles say that the students sued because they are upset that the University of Florida Supreme Court ruled last month that online voting was unconstitutional. The court said online voting could encourage voter coercion. Patricia Telles-Irvin, vice president for student affairs at the university, has announced that she will form a committee to look into online voting. —Andrea L. Foster
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