Faculty to elect senators via electronic ballot submission

This year, for the first time ever, faculty in all UNMC colleges will use an electronic system to select their Faculty Senate representatives.

“The intent of conducting the elections electronically is to reduce the work involved in counting the ballots,” said Joel Bessmer, M.D., chairman of the Faculty Senate’s Membership and Elections Committee. “The change to electronic balloting also will make the voting process easier for faculty members.”

The Office of Information Technology Services has designed the voting process, modeling it after one already being used by the College of Nursing. Faculty will elect colleagues from only their own college. The procedure for identifying faculty eligible to vote and to serve as senators has not changed. Those responsibilities will continue to be handled by the Office of the Faculty Senate.

Ballots will be disbursed via e-mail at 5 p.m. on Wednesday, April 27. Faculty must submit their ballots by Friday, May 13.

The process for voting is as follows:

• An e-mail will go out to all eligible voters from “UNMC Faculty Senate” with a link to “UNMC Faculty Senate Elections.”
  
• During the balloting period, a daily reminder will appear in UNMC Today with the link to the “Voting Booth.”
  
• Voters log onto the site using their Lotus Notes Web user name and password.
  
• Upon logging on, voters are in the “Voting Booth.”
  
• In the “Voting Booth,” voters get and fill out their electronic ballots.
  
• After submitting a completed ballot, voters have the opportunity to review and edit their selections before performing a final “submit.”
  
• Upon final submission, the computer enters the votes into the election database and takes voters back to the “Voting Booth.”
  
• Voters exit the program.

“The people in ITS have assured the entire Faculty Senate that these elections will be secure and that secrecy will be maintained,” Dr. Bessmer said. “We’ll follow the response to the electronic voting this year and compare the number of votes to past elections. Subsequently, we’ll make decisions on how to further improve the voting process.”