A UF student organization with one purpose - to make online voting a permanent fixture of Student Government elections - has two more weeks to garner the more than 5,000 signatures needed for a petition.
The UF Supreme Court ruled Tuesday that the Student Body constitution's definition of days should translate into calendar days instead of school days. The former would give the student group, Students for Online Voting, or SOLVe, more time to collect the signatures.
The group has until Jan. 29 to submit its petition to the SG supervisor of elections. The signatures would have been due today if the definition hadn't been clarified.
SOLVe has been collecting signatures since November and has 4,000 so far.
The group needs signatures from at least 10 percent of UF's student body, which is roughly 5,000 students, to secure a spot for the online-voting amendment on the ballot for SG elections Feb. 26 and 27.
If a majority of UF students vote 'yes' on the amendment, online voting will become an SG standard.
Sam Miorelli, SOLVe's executive director and a mechanical engineering junior, said the group will aim to collect 1,000 more signatures than the petition requires - just in case.
Miorelli said he's confident the dozen UF students collecting signatures will reach the goal in time.
"The remarkable thing about it is you've just got to tell people what we're doing, and people are happy and even eager to sign," he said.
Ryan Day, SG deputy chief of staff, filled in for Sarah Krantz, SG supervisor of elections, at the hearing. Krantz was out of town.
Day said the supervisor of elections doesn't choose the petition deadline, and Krantz announced what she thought was the right date, he said.
He said he thinks Tuesday's ruling was based on a Florida Supreme Court case ruling in the 1980s, which featured conflict over the same wording problem of "no later than" a certain number of days.
If the UF Supreme Court continues to rule on the issue based on precedence, he said he doesn't think the amendment would make it to the ballot.
Florida law has ruled online voting unconstitutional, he said.
The SG court will release a formal written opinion about the case within the next few days.
