Ballots Deleted After Software Rejects Activate, Stand Apart Votes

All votes in the ANUSA Election for Gen Rep and NUS delegates cast between 7:05 and 8:05 on Monday night have been cancelled after it was discovered some candidates could not be voted for. The glitch affected Stand Apart and Activate’s Gen Rep candidates, with 51 votes cast for those positions during the hour. ANUSA President James Connolly was among those who had their votes cancelled.

The glitch was discovered on Monday night at around 7:45 after an affected student commented about it on the ANU Schmidtposting Facebook page. Connolly explained to Observer that MSL (the online voting system) made Stand Apart and Activate’s candidates appear twice on the Gen Rep and NUS ballots. However, when voters tried to preference either of the duplicates, they were told their preferences were invalid. Fixing the glitch was made difficult by the fact that MSL is based in the UK.

By the time the issue was fixed, 51 votes had been cast. As this tally includes both positions, Connolly told Observer the actual number of students affected is between 26 and 51. The affected voters have been sent emails from MSL asking them to vote for those positions again.

Last year, the quota (the number of votes required to be elected) for Gen Reps was less than 120. However, turnout in this year’s election is on track to exceed last year’s 2100, with over 1900 votes cast and nearly 24 hours to go. As such, the spoiled votes are arguably less likely to affect the result than if this had occurred in 2016.

Despite the risk of some affected students not re-voting, candidates seem broadly happy with the response. Shake Up Presidential candidate Cameron Allan told Observer, “I think James and Kat responded in the best way they could … I think it’s a fair solution and even if one or two of our votes are lost we won’t be appealing that.” Lift Presidential candidate Eleanor Kay said, “I’m trying to keep out of the actual running of the election … I trust the President, General Secretary, and Returning Officer to do the best thing.” Stand Apart convener Ashish Nagesh said the response was “alright given the circumstances”, but expressed dismay that such an error could occur, saying, “We should investigate…what better software we can look to for the future.”