Student Government elections begin today, marking the third year the voting process has taken place online. Polls open at 9 a.m. The voting precinct: any computer, on or off campus, that has Internet access.

After logging on, the student will be directed to a secure voting site and will have to enter a Social Security number and OASIS pin number.

After the login is finished, the program will verify that the person is a USF student and will check to see what college he or she is applied to.

“The site is just as secure as if you were registering for classes,” said David Armstrong, SG business manager said. “I think it is more secure than paper ballots, and it is cheaper.”

The student will then proceed to the presidential and vice presidential candidates’ page, and pick his choices and move on to the senate page. When entering the senate page, the only candidates that will appear are those from the college for which the student is registered.

“If the student is undeclared/undecided, they can choose and select a college to vote for those particular senator candidates,” Armstrong said. “They can choose how many to vote for because the page will show how many seats are available.”

The third voting decision students must make is for a constitution amendment. This will be done by a yes-or-no process.Armstrong said that this year a new feature was added to the Web site.

“We added a verification page, where it asks the student if these are the correct voting choices,” he said. “After they click yes, that is their final vote and decision. If they want to change their choices, they can simply click on the back button.”

Candidates for student body president and vice president are incumbents Mike Griffin/Dave Mincberg and challengers Joe Nirenberg/Lakia Stewart. Both tickets are making last-minute preparations to their campaign to get people to the polls and vote.Griffin said he and Mincberg won’t rest until Friday, when the election is over.

“We will be doing everything and anything we can do,” Griffin said. “We have been at Cooper, the engineering building and talking to organizations.”

Nirenberg said he and Stewart will be at Cooper Hall today and other places on campus.

“We are going to participate in Bullsit today and push people to go out and vote,” Nirenberg said.

Griffin and Nirenberg said the main goal is trying to get as many people out to vote and to feel the energy of voting.

Shortly after 9 p.m. on the first day of voting last year, approximately 1,100 students had voted.

“We have found that the number of voters are higher at night than during the day,” Armstrong said.

Armstrong said tonight he might give a total vote count but not release who is in the lead. On Thursday, the final results will be known a minute or two after the polls close.

“We will verify the numbers are correct and let the candidates know as soon as possible,” Armstrong said.

Armstrong also said that up until the evening before the election day, there had not been any real cases of violations of the Election Rules Committee statues.

“Of course, you have your random flyer or chalking, but really there hasn’t been that big of a deal with either ticket,” he said. “It has been a very clean and respectful race so far.”

The online polls will open at 9 a.m. today and will close at 7 p.m. Thursday, and students are only allowed to vote once. Log onto to vote.

“Students are able to vote anytime overnight,” Armstrong said.

Contact Stefanie Greenat oraclestefanie@yahoo.com