Happy UPUA Election Day!

Student Affairs switched to a system called OrgCentral a few weeks ago, which will now host the ballot for UPUA elections. Unsurprisingly, things are off to a rocky technological start.

The official elections website is vote.psu.edu, which is where you can read the platforms of all candidates for all positions. However, to vote, you need to leave that site and head over to OrgCentral (yes, really). You can do so by clocking “vote here” right below the elections logo:

Once you get to OrgCentral, the homepage is even more confusing. You’ll need to scroll down a bit until you see this graphic, and then click sign in and follow the steps to get your ballot:

After you sign in to vote, you’ll go through a series of screens to vote for whoever you want, starting with the seats for the academic college(s) you belong to.

You might then be thinking to yourself, “I’m not a member of the College of Nursing. I’m not cut out to be a nurse!”

Don’t panic — everything’s fine.

Ellen Maple is running unopposed, so it’s not the biggest possible issue. We had joked last week at UPUA’s Meet the Candidates night that Maple was just trying to receive a decent number of votes, as the College of Nursing is notoriously a seat with low voter turnout. Ellen, I think you’ll be setting some records after all.

Will this confusion decrease overall voter turnout? The numbers already plummeted last year after reaching record highs in 2017. An unopposed executive election certainly doesn’t bring folks to the polls like a tight race.

Just to be clear, the Elections Commission is not to blame. They, truly, are doing God’s Work. Elections Commissioner O’Neill Kennedy said she has a lot of feelings about switching to the new system, but wasn’t prepared to share them.

The polls are open until 10 p.m. tonight with results to be announced shortly thereafter. You can vote at vote.psu.edu…or orgcentral.psu.edu.