p. A student and Student Information Network developer logged into the system on Student Assembly election day March 29 and generated election results while the election was in progress.
p. The same former SIN leaders and alumni who worked to restore the data that was lost on election night due to a human error notified then-Elections Commissioner senior James Evans that several students logged into the administrative pages of SIN, and one of the students — who they said was most likely senior Ben Locher — generated results.
p. According to SIN procedures, the students should have been blocked from entering the administrative pages on election day but were not.
p.Evans said that Locher logged into the system and immediately afterward results were tabulated. He does not know for sure that Locher was the one who accessed the data.
p. “I have been a SIN developer for several years and have regular access to the SIN system. I did nothing wrong in monitoring the system as would any other SIN developer,” Locher said in an e-mail to The Flat Hat. “I had (and have) no idea that SIN developers are not to access the system.”
p. He would not answer questions about whether or not he generated results. Locher is a former Flat Hat staff writer. Evans, who is also a senator for the senior class, is sponsoring The Means of Polling Act in the SA Senate, a bill that names Locher as the student who generated the results and censures any SA member who might have seen them. The bill directs the Elections Commission to research new polling methods.
p. “SIN started in ’98 and has done a lot for us, but at this point we’re facing problems year after year,” Evans said in the telephone interview. He is advocating a more secure, Banner-based voting system and is trying to work out the details with Information Technology.
p. “I don’t know if SIN is going to be able to supply us with what we need in the future,” he said.
