CCSC Considers Election Changes

Posted 12:00 p.m. Long-term changes for Columbia College Student Council elections may be in the works―with students voting by plurality instead of majority, and more data to back up close election results.

CC students would have the opportunity to rank the candidates instead of choosing between contenders, with the lowest ranked runner eliminated from the election and votes redistributed to the other candidates. Columbia would be following in suit of Harvard, Dartmouth, and MIT. Candidates with a flat-out majority would win in a supposedly more transparent but greater time-consuming election process.

But alleged problems with Columbia College Information Technology has been slow to adjust the voting Web site, council members said, continually pushing back proposed plannig deadlines as the CCSC pushes for publishing rights for the chair of elections and a write-in or preferential voting system. Scheduling changes may turn into a long-term project, and could possible not be put into place until next year.

"Our E-board [Executive Board] feels very strongly about the elections being run in a very transparent and open manner," CCSC President George Krebs said. Council members said that the change in policy would give the elections more legitimacy, with a greater range of data to back up results.

On another note, apparently the entirety of the CCSC was born in the month of February, as cake and trick candles abound, as well as singing the birthday song―twice.