Elections in the Faculty of Engineering may have to be re-run once again, as the ICU voting software is completely broken.
A number of positions have no candidates to vote for (e.g. Honorary Secretary), however they still appear on the electronic ballot paper. Attempting to submit the ballot results in a series of errors, unless the abstain box is checked - in which case an additional error appears.
To make matters worse, not only is the voting software broken in this respect, but the required "Re-open Nominations" candidate is also missing from the ballot papers, meaning Guildsmen and Miners have no option but to vote for one of the "real" candidates, rather than expressing their disgust by voting RON. Although the voting system errors are unlikely to affect the integrity of the voting, the lack of RON means the elections are not run in accordance with the ICU constitution and should be declared invalid. Following an ICU Court ruling last year, this means they must be completely re-run from scratch for the second time, including re-opening nominations. This will please some of those in mines, who looked set to be away on a field trip while the elections took place, leading to a last minute attempt to open voting later so they could take part.
Following last term's shambles, when the absence of the only remaining staff member who good work the system led to elections being cancelled, the President assured concerned students that steps would be taken to prevent a repeat of those events. The electronic system has been modified to allow full control by the returning officer, unfortunately it appears that a little more manual intervention may have been necessary.
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