2017’s ASB elections saw major changes for both first and second round elections, in an effort towards vote tallying efficiency and exposure of all candidates’ ideas. This year, first round candidates hosted a livestream, an online public question and answer session, for their platforms to be heard. Second round candidates were required to have a speech, and the voting process was done entirely online.

Election commissioners Jessica Liu and Maysnow Liu credit these changes to the suggestions voiced by the student body.

“People wanted to see changes, so voting wouldnt be based on a popularity contest,”  Liu said.  So we tried our best to get the candidates to spread their ideas and policies.”

This was the first year ASB instated online voting, a major change to the election process. Students received an email through SchoolLoop from Mr. Willer, reminding them that voting for their class officers was online on ihsvikings.org. Online voting limited students to voting only once by requiring an ID number for every vote.

This change was prompted by the observation that people often casted multiple ballots or voted outside of their own class through the previous scantron method. This method was less accurate and more time consuming, as ASB had to collect the ballots from every class and count them by hand. It also costs money to provide all these paper ballots, and online voting eliminates the paper waste. Seniors were also able to skew class officer votes by voting, even though they are restricted from voting for next year’s class officers. ASB’s target response pool was 60% of each class, and about half of all three voting classes casted a vote. However, this online process was only used in second round elections.

For first round elections, presidential candidates took it upon themselves to organize a live stream video on Facebook, during which they would lay out their plans and ideas, and answer questions posed to them.

“[ASB] didn’t plan this live stream, but it’s great that the candidates decided to act on their own part and answer questions from the student body,” Liu said.

President elect for 2017-2018, Rohith Dara, believes the livestream was necessary to reach everyone.

“We had had question and answer sessions during lunch, but we were disappointed in the lack of attendance,” said Dara. “We felt like we needed to do more and do it in a more accessible way. The livestream was also saved as a video, allowing people to watch whenever and wherever they wanted. With about 3.6k viewers, I think it was a huge success and it set a precedent that will continue growing as time goes on: voting should be based on ideas, not faces.”