The Undergraduate Student Government and Information Resources and Technology have created a new voting website in hopes of smoother spring elections.

After technical difficulties the last two elections, USG decided to work with IRT to improve the voting site.

“It just got to the point where we realized that in order to ensure the election results were as fair as possible, we had to upgrade to something more reliable,” said Corey Dahl, USG vice president of public relations.

He added, “It will give us more control over the page so we won’t have to worry about bouncing back and forth with IRT with any changes we have to make. Now we can be on top of the site.”

USG President Dwight Anderson said the new website has been in the works for more than a year and will be similar to the St. Thomas Commuter Center website. He said it will be more user-friendly.

“Now hopefully the site will be more secure and a bit more robust so we don’t have to deal with any issues that may compromise election results,” Dahl said. “Basically, we hope it will undo all the problems we’ve had in the past.”

Sam Barriga, USG elections and credentials chair, said the new website will be more accurate and dependable.

Dahl said they want to avoid having the website crash this election, because he doesn’t know if students will come back and vote.

Dahl said USG wants students who have had problems voting in past elections to be able to vote once and be done, instead of wondering if their vote counted the first time.

“When there’s a big election on the line, you have to be very sure that the results are fair, and everyone who wants to vote has the opportunity to do so, and those who do have their votes counted,” he said.

He also said there is no way of knowing whether the technical glitches in the past have affected previous election results.

“We certainly hope those issues haven’t happened, but we’ve operated in a way where we’ve tried to minimize any errors that might occur in the outcome,” Dahl said.

USG adviser Margaret Cahill and several council members will meet with IRT this week to test the site. It will be put to the final test during spring elections April 13-15.

“In the past we’ve done the best we could with what we had, and we’re confident this will just make things better,” Dahl said.

Ashley Stewart can be reached at stew1177@stthomas.edu.