An amendment to bring online voting to UF's Student Government elections will appear on the spring ballot in February pending a petition's approval.
The student group Students for Online Voting turned in a petition with 5,683 student signatures Tuesday. SG Supervisor of Elections Sarah Krantz said once a sample of the signatures is verified, the amendment would be on the ballot.
Krantz said the group would be the first in UF history to get a constitutional amendment on the ballot by petition.
If a majority of students vote for it, online voting will become effective fall 2008, She said.
In the past two weeks, Sam Miorelli, the executive director of the group and a mechanical engineering junior, said he spent more time gathering petition signatures than in class.
"I feel spectacular," Miorelli said. "We worked our butts off."
SG requires about 5,000 signatures, or 10 percent of UF's student body, to place a constitutional amendment on an SG election ballot.
Tommy Jardon, a UF law student and the group's president, said he has been trying to make online voting a reality since 2004.
Jardon said in fall 2005, more than 80 percent of UF students voted for an online voting option.
But online voting was deemed unconstitutional, and the UF Supreme Court overturned the amendment in spring.
Online voting turned up in the Supreme Court again on Jan. 15.
The group had been collecting signatures since November and had gathered about 4,000 two weeks ago when the due date for the petition came under question by SG officials.
The confusion over whether the constitution's definition of "days" meant calendar days or school days was taken to the Supreme Court. The court ruled that the amount of days the group had to turn in signatures was measured in calendar days, keeping the deadline Jan. 29 instead of Jan. 16.
Jardon said he thinks SG officials have tried to block online voting in the past because it would make voting easy for more students who might not have voted otherwise and might vote for a less well-known candidate or party.
"The last thing people in power want is more people voting," Jardon said. "Those entrenched are afraid of what voters really think about them."
