Moments after the special election opened online, ineligible faculty and staff votes nearly invalidated the results.

“We identified 24 invalid CSUS staff and faculty logins, and out of those 24, 18 cast an invalid vote,” said John Bodin, managing partner of ElectionTRUST LLC.

Upon hearing this, some students, already weary over the election, became more concerned about the news.

“This only raises the question that if you can immediately change a valid vote to be invalid, how easy is it to then change other votes to be in your favor?” said Communication Studies major Greg Dossey.

Spencer Freund, Associate Vice President of Telecommunications, said that it was a coding mistake in the program that caused the problem.

ASI has already issued a formal statement to all students through their Saclink account assuring voters that the invalid votes will not be counted when the final tally is taken and that all votes are cross-validated by the Sac State database.

ElectionTRUST is the third party company responsible for authenticating eligible voters and counting the votes after the polls close. Boding said Sac State provides them with Saclink identification numbers, and ElectionTRUST provides the ballots.

“This only proves that machines don’t make mistakes,” said Bodin. “If anything, this was a good test of the system, and it only proves that it works.”

The polls close Thursday, Dec. 9 at 8 p.m. and the results will be posted shortly thereafter.

The State Hornet initially called attention to the problem on Tuesday.