Elan Ohayon spent the last year worrying about a new web-based voting system, and after what happened to him last week, he now has every reason to say “I told you so.”

As a candidate for Governing Council (GC)—the top decision-making body at U of T—he was not pleased about being a guinea pig for the university’s first go at on-line voting for GC elections. In fact, he was so concerned that instead of voting on-line, he marched down to the administration’s head office and demanded a paper ballot.

They gave him one, he filled it out and it was sealed and time-stamped.

When the results came in, Ohayon was beside himself. He had tied with his competitor for the one seat. 111 votes each. The deciding vote—his paper ballot—had not been counted. Nor would it be.

Because election rules stated that voting was to take place on-line, a decision had been made not to count the paper ballot. Instead, Ohayon was told to report back to Simcoe Hall on Tuesday, where Chief Returning Officer Cristina Oke would draw from a hat to determine who would win the election.

Ohayon did his best to have his objections heard, saying the matter shouldn’t come to a draw out of the hat before the matter had even gone to the elections committee. But the administration didn’t listen, saying they were only following procedure.

On Tuesday, Ohayon and supporter David Melville were still trying to present objections as Oke dipped her hand into a cardboard box.

She pulled out Ohayon’s name.

“It shouldn’t have come to that,” said a relieved, but still angry Ohayon. “[The random draw] was a symptom of a fundamentally flawed system.”

He plans to renew his battle against on-line voting. Aside from this fiasco, his claim is strengthened by the fact that technical problems caused the results to be delayed several days.

“The haste with which the administration moved to decide the winner by lot [random draw] bespeaks irresponsibility,” he added. “It’s unfair not to hear the issues first—the committee has to at least consider all the ballots,” he said.

He wants no result to be finalized until the elections committee—which is supposed to deal with disputes—has met and ruled.

He also has wider problems with the entire process. According to Ohayon, experts have yet to prove voting over the net is completely secure and private. Because students enter their student number to vote on-line, Ohayon worries that someone could access the system and determine how individuals voted. As well, the number of people who can vote on ROSI is limited to those who are computer literate and have Internet access.

“I don’t think ROSI is as dependable as the university would like,” said Melville.

Melville, Ohayon and former SAC president Chris Ramsaroop have brought forward concerns about web voting to Governing Council in past years, but they do not feel the elections committee has addressed these worries.

According to Oke, the administration chose the web-based voting system “to enhance accessibility, because all students are required to use ROSI.”

As for the random draw decision, Oke is confident that it was appropriate. “I’m glad people were there to see the transparency of the process,” she said. “It went very smoothly and everybody seemed pleased with it.”

Oke said she warned Ohayon that because the guidelines call for web voting, his paper ballot would not be counted. “We can’t break the rules for one person,” she added.

Ohayon said Oke has been “put in the terrible position of having to police irresponsible rules and procedures.” The elections committee, not the Chief Returning Officer, should deal with these problems, he added.

Ramsaroop argued this case sets a dangerous precedent for future elections not only at the university but elsewhere.

“The university is belittling the issue of governance by thinking things can be decided by web voting and drawing names out of a box,” said Ohayon.