It will also help the election clerks in the processing of votes saving time, effort and avoiding potential problems such as security or miscounts.

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1 UCISA Award for Excellence 2007 Online Student Elections Institution Name: University of Nottingham Originating Department: Portal Team, Information Services Contact Name: Ian Wilson Objective of the Online Student Elections: The objective of the Online Student Elections development is to provide all students of the University of Nottingham with the ability to quickly, easily and securely vote in their Student Union elections at any time of the day or night when one or more of the various elections held each year are open. By circumventing the need for students to attend voting stations in person, saving time, effort and the other barriers to voting (such as the vagaries of the UK weather!) this will help to increase voter turnout and thereby make any decision more representative of the electorate s views. It will also help the election clerks in the processing of votes saving time, effort and avoiding potential problems such as security or miscounts. By maximising turnout and engagement with the electoral systems at the University we are responding to issues highlighted by the Students Union and thereby contributing to the positive reinforcement needed if new generations of voters are to participate in the wider democratic process and reverse the decline seen in recent years. Description of the Online Student Elections: The online voting system is a one-stop shop for all students at the University to be able to vote online for as few, or as many, Elections for which they are eligible. The system was developed in close collaboration between Information Services with the University s Students Union in 2006, and is delivered via the University s existing personalised Portal system. The project was managed via a series of meetings between Students Union representatives and the IS Portal team, providing an opportunity to discuss the Union s requirements, test user interface options and understand the business process for managing the elections and analysing results. The Students Union were involved in all stages of the development from analysis of the business process through to testing. Technically, in order to provide an enhanced and simplified user experience, this was achieved using a customisation of the drag-and-drop sortable list available from the Scriptaculous ( Javascript library and then integrated within the University s Portal framework. 1

2 The elections that take place at the University all use the single transferable vote method ( and is performed using one (or more) of the following programs: * Open STV ( * ChoicePlus Pro ( * Beremiz - Command line Java program from Durham University Students' Union The Votes made via the Portal are exported from Oracle into CSV format and sent to the returning officer on a CD (& also via if required). Alongside this those votes cast via Paper Ballot are converted to CSV format by Election Clerks during the counting process. These CSV files are then merged by the Students Union to produce the raw data for analysis by the vote counting software. To ensure equality of access by differently-abled voters, paper balloting was retained. This is a positive aspect of the system as it still allows for the elections to have a presence in the real (not virtual) world - online voting should enhance the democratic process, not simply push everyone online. Clerks at the election booths are therefore given an Administrators Interface to the online Election system that allows them to register the user as a paper ballot vote, simply by checking the voter's student ID on their University Card. This links the voter, their method of voting and the election clerk together, so that election fraud by election clerks is minimised. Incorporating the exciting new technology known broadly as Web 2.0 with existing Portal technology (in our case uportal) is an innovative - and admittedly risky - approach. However the positive reaction from the users has more than justified the work needed to address the technical challenges to deliver this facility. In addition to being an excellent example of a collaborative project with the Students Union, the project has also demonstrated excellent return on investment with the modest 40 person-days of technical work being offset by both the time saved by Election Clerks every time an Election is run (time to process and announce the marks having dropped from 24 hours ie working through the night - to just 4 and this has been repeated in dozens of separate elections to date) and the positive public relations the Students Union and Information Services has enjoyed, the latter being commended as being forward looking in relation to its use of a University Portal. The benefits of the Online Student Election System The impact of the Online Student Elections since its introduction has been significant, most succinctly demonstrated by a quote from Ian Wiggins, Democracy and Communications Officer for the University of Nottingham s Student Union: "The on-line voting via the portal has been a massive success, voter turn out for last years elections was nearly 6000 (a record across the U.K.), around 80% of votes were cast online making the elections much more visible, accessible (and easier for elections committee to count!). The portal voting has sparked a lot of interest nationally and Nottingham has often been referred to by many other Unions as the leader in e-voting. 2

3 All in all, it s a great system that massively improves the way students have a say in their Union! " A full description of the voting process and example screenshots are in the Appendix. Name of Staff involved: Ian Wilson, Portal Team Leader (ian.wilson@nottingham.ac.uk) Ben Bennett, Portal Team (ben.bennett@nottingham.ac.uk) David Simpson, Portal Team (david.simpson@nottingham.ac.uk) James Hetherington, Portal Team (james.hetherington@nottingham.ac.uk) Chris Norris, University of Nottingham Students Union Chrystyna Chymera, University of Nottingham Students Union Ian Wiggins, University of Nottingham Students Union (sudemcomms@nottingham.ac.uk ) Support of Institution UCISA Representative: The development of the Student Online Election system has been an unqualified success, saving a significant amount of time for all involved in running and voting in student elections. It is popular with both the Union Executive and management and the students themselves (as demonstrated by the vastly improved turnout). We are delighted to have delivered a project which puts our Union at the forefront in e-voting in the UK. The project demonstrates best practice in the following areas: Innovation: use of innovative technologies and techniques to ensure that IS and the University remains at the leading edge of systems and Portal developments in the UK HE sector. Systems integration: integration of new services into the University s existing and highly popular strategic Portal service Self-service implementation: students can now see candidate manifestos and vote in elections remotely using the familiar Portal self-service system Returns on investment: in addition to the improved efficiency achieved by the Students Union election managers, the time saved by approximately 4800 students not having to attend polling stations is significant. This added value will be enjoyed time and time again as the process is repeated for each election. Collaboration: responding to both Union and individual student need and developing services collaboratively. Lynne Tucker, Director of IT Systems, Information Services, Lynne.Tucker@nottingham.ac.uk 3

4 Appendix A prototype was developed using SCRIPTACULOUS a feature-rich set of customisable Web 2.0 browser page controls which are built on top of an open source Javascript library providing a broad range of functions, including drag and drop: The challenge was then to integrate this functionality with a JAVA channel that would read / write to an Oracle backend database, all within a uportal framework (which would handle all the authentication / authorisation). In addition the tool had to provide Election Clerks with the ability to check, in real time, if individuals had already voted in order to process any paper votes. Additional complications included: There are often multiple elections running concurrently, with different start and end dates The electorate for each election is usually different (often subtly) Voting is based on the single transferable vote system If there are any live Elections those students eligible to vote are informed of how many they can participate in and invited to proceed: 4

5 Following basic user testing we knew that the drag and drop approach was easy to understand so minimal instructions were required: In order to vote for particular candidate users simply click on a candidate and drag their name from the list on the left hand side into the Vote for box. In doing so the list on the left is reduced by one (ie. each candidate can only exist once either in the pool of candidates on the left or the vote for list of candidates on the right). 5

6 This approach was used as some elections can have as many as 20 candidates running and alternative interfaces involving radio buttons and drop down listboxes had been tried and found wanting. 6

7 Names added to the Vote for box could be picked up and dropped within the box in order to re-sort them. This is an important feature as we operate a single transferable voting system. Eventually the user will have added all those candidates s/he wished to vote for and re-sorted them into their preferred order. 7

8 They can now move down the screen and repeat the process if there is a second and election. Users can only drag candidates into the corresponding Vote for box. In some elections one option is to re-open nominations where the user does not wish to vote for any of the candidates available. 8

9 Once the user is happy with their choice they click vote and a popup screen is presented confirming the votes they are about to cast. This is an important confirmation stage and the user can decide to close the window and return to the voting screen and carry on moving candidates. However if they are satisfied with their choice they click submit. 9

10 Finally the user returns to the original screen which informs them of the elections in which they have successfully voted. Note that the continue to the ballot button has gone. 10