This year, the school traded in the old fashion system of paper forms and is going high tech for more than just the beginning of the school year paperwork. For the first time, SCA has decided to switch the Homecoming court voting from a paper ballot to an online system.

   Instead of passing out a paper during the advisory FLEX block with the names of every student in each class, the voting was on a link on the Student Council Association activities page. There, students could go to the link for their grade and select their choice  for Homecoming queen and king by simply clicking the box next to the student’s name.  In order to ensure that only one vote is cast per student, students not only enter in their name but also digitally sign their ballot with their student ID number.

  This decision helped the environment by saving nearly 1600 sheets of paper as well as saving the SCA members from spending hours counting ballots. Also, because SCA members will not have to scan each sheet individually, it will  fix the issue of human error that comes with counting the votes by hand. Despite these positive aspects to this new voting system, not everyone supports this change. Some students believe that this new voting system is too much of a hassle because it requires students to log in to their student account and access the voting link on their own time.

  “Its easier when they hand you a piece of paper,” senior Mashal Azhar said.

  Not only are students finding this new system to be an inconvenience, but some are even saying that it is the reason they are not voting. Junior Rachael Greenman is one of many students who has decided not to vote this year but said  she would have voted had it remained on a paper ballot. “Because then it’s in FLEX and don’t have to go online and do extra stuff to actually vote,” Greenman said.

  At the same time, others argue that the fact that students now have to go out of their way to vote for Homecoming court is actually a good thing.

  “If you really care about it, you’ll figure out how to do it,” said senior Michael Roszel. “The people who don’t care about it aren’t going to go online so I guess it makes it more significant.”

  Apathy is not the only thing keeping students from voting this year. Unlike the former method, where students were told directly when and how to vote by their advisory teacher, this year few student are even aware that the voting had been changed to an online version, and some did not know where to find the link on the school site.

  “I didn’t even know they had changed it,” said freshman Cassie Van Gorder.

  However, when asked, SCA Homecoming sponsor, Ms. Alexandra Swinimer claimed that they did in fact spread the word on this change through a number of ways.

  “It was put on the morning announcements and English teachers were emailed and asked to tell their students to log on to vote,” said Ms. Swinimer

  Regardless of the mixture of both positive and negative feedback, SCA plans to continue this new high tech version of voting in upcoming years.

“It’s very easy to do and it did make counting the ballots just like a ten minute process as opposed to a five hour process,” said Ms. Swinimer.