Associated Students of Madison had a successful online election as of late Thursday night, according to ASM Student Elections Commission Chair Leah Moe.
""Everything has gone very smoothly and we didn't have any problems with the online system,"" said Moe, who is also an associate justice on ASM Student Judiciary.
The results were tallied in less than three hours, improving over the seven-hour tallying of last year's contested results, according to Student Judiciary Chief Justice Joshua Tyack.
Tyack said the increased number of write-in votes were the main reason for the efficient confirmation of the results.
Some problems existed with students being unsure what form of identification to use during certain stages of the voting process, according to Moe. When asked during the voting process, some students said they did not know if they should use their student ID or their MyUW NetID, Moe said.
""We've gotten quite a few confused calls because people try to enter their student ID, but after we sent out a second e-mail with instructions [of] what you're supposed to do ... that was the only issue we saw,"" Moe said.
The online nature of the election had an effect on the campaigns conducted by students this year as well.
""Campaigning is a little more difficult,"" said UW-Madison freshman Steve Lawrence, who won a seat in the College of Letters and Sciences with 975 votes this year.
Despite this, Lawrence said he felt the election was a vast improvement over last year's attempt.
Moe similarly said the election was a success and that ASM plans to use the system again next year.
Gestina Sewell won the position of Senior Class President with 244 votes in the election. ASM's Student Service Finance Committee positions were filled by Alex Gallagher with 4655 votes, and Katrina Flores, Andy Gordon, Erik Butzlaff, and Erika Lopez, each garnering less than 60 votes each.
Preliminary results showed there was a 12-way tie for the Special Student Seat in ASM. This conflict will be resolved in a later Student Judiciary meeting, Moe said.
The United Council Referendum passed, coming within 119 votes of being defeated. The referendum will be on the ballot again in the spring of 2009.
Over 3,500 students voted in the election, which is close to 9% of UW-Madison's student population. This was a greater percentage than both last year's spring election and the recent fall election.
The students elected will take office May 1, according to Moe.
—Amanda Hoffstrom contributed to this report.
