After spending the past year implementing an intricate online voting system for the University, the newly-selected University Board of Elections members used paper ballots to elect their new chair and vice-chair Friday.
Seven of the 10 new UBE members were present and elected first-year Engineering student Steve Yang as chair and first-year Medical student Alanna Rice as vice chair.
Two members ran for chair, and three members ran for vice-chair. Each of the five candidates gave a short speech, followed by a question and answer period, outgoing UBE Chair Brian Cook said.
The UBE selection committee chose 10 new members to serve on next year's board about a week and a half ago. Twenty applications were received, only three of which were from graduate students, Cook said.
Only 10 of the 11 spots have been selected for next year's UBE at this time because only three graduate school students applied and were accepted. The UBE constitution requires that four of the 11 members must represent the University's graduate programs.
Cook said the UBE would like to fill the position as soon as possible. The UBE will send targeted e-mails to graduate students and review graduate applicants from last year's selection process in an attempt to fill the last position.
Six UBE members will be returning from last year, including Yang who served as the vice chair on last year's board. Yang said he is optimistic about the upcoming year.
"I want to make the process easier for participants and voters, in order to engage more voters," Yang said.
At the inaugural meeting of the new term, the new members also went over the final report from the past board and discussed their goals for the upcoming year, Yang said.
Yang added that he plans to discuss at next week's meeting changes in the ITC online voting process that will be implemented over the summer. Possible changes or additions include online petitioning, campaign finance and write-in votes.
The UBE selection committee consisted of five members: the Student Council president, Honor Committee chair, University Judiciary Committee chair, Fourth-Year Council president and the outgoing UBE Chair.
"I am very hopeful for the coming year -- I would like to see the UBE infrastructure improved," Cook said.
He added that he would like the UBE to implement electronic forms and post the expenditure reports online.
Cook said increasing the online transactions "will go a long way in freeing up their time to work more with the community."
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