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The Fall 2024 Elections

The fall 2024 elections have been the highest turnout elections for the CU Student Government since votes started to be collected using the current methods. The final number of votes recorded by the election commission are 2120, marking a roughly 50% increase in turnout over the previous year’s fall elections.

Approval Voting Ballot

The system used for voting is known as Approval voting. Voters were allowed to select as many candidates as they approve of, and the candidates with the five highest vote totals would be elected to serve as representatives at large.The ballot was constructed so that every voter would receive a randomized list of the candidates, and then they would be allowed to select as few or as many candidates as they approved of. The Election Commission chose this system because it gives voters the most freedom to express their opinions about the candidates without having to engage with a confusing ranking system or feeling limited by the number of candidates that they are able to vote for.

Tabulation

Due to the simplicity of the approval voting system the Election Commission was able to count the number of votes quickly and in a documented process. No changes were made in candidate placement due to the tabulation system, and all results remained the same other than individual vote totals.

1) Receiving all raw votes

In total the Fall 2024 Ballot received 2692 responses through the survey system Qualtrics. This was a mix of ballots collected during the election season as well as responses from incomplete ballots that were opened but never completed.

2) Removing Incomplete ballots

Once the Qualtrics survey was closed the system automatically recorded a few hundred ballots that were incomplete. These ballots were mostly blank and indicate that someone opened the survey, but never ended up filling it out. All of these ballots were deemed ineligible as they were not completed within the permitted period of the election season.

3) Removing Duplicates

A function was performed to ensure that all students only had a single recorded vote. This is due to the fact that the ballot allows multiple submissions from the same student account. The commission opted to count the latest ballot received to allow for voters to change their mind over time. All other ballots from the same voter were then discarded

4) Removing ineligible voters

The list of recorded votes was compared against a list of fee paying students. Only students who have fully paid all fees are eligible to vote in student government elections, but the Qualtrics system allows for members of CU staff and non-fee paying students with an identikey to submit a ballot. All ballots that were not connected to a fee paying student were discarded.

5) Tabulating all final vote totals

After all ineligible ballots had been discarded the Election Commission then tabulated the final vote counts and candidate rankings and released the results.