The decision of whether Sacramento State student elections should be moved completely online may be decided today, when Associated Students Inc. will vote on the matter.

The plan is part of the new election code the ASI board hopes to have finalized by today’s deadline.

Some board members support scrapping traditional polling booths at designated sites around campus and moving elections completely online.

James Shelby II, vice president of finance, supports the move and said a few other CSUs have already moved successfully to online election forums.

“In some cases it has actually increased voter turnout,” Shelby said.

However, ASI President Josh Wood supports only a partial move to online voting, with traditional voting booths still made available to students on campus.

“I’ve had complaints from students who feel that traditional voting is better,” Wood said.

Students are more likely to go vote right after receiving information from candidates and seeing election rallies on campus in areas like the library quad, Wood explained.

Wood said that if traditional punch card voting is ended, he is interested in setting up four computer polling stations around campus, with four computers at each site.

Wood hopes to have this included in the finalized election code.

ASI’s first experiment with online voting happened in December, when 5 percent of the student population logged on to the ASI Web site to vote in the special election for Measures 1 and 2.

Randy Morgan, ASI director of finance and administration, said December’s special election went off successfully in terms of security and preventing voter fraud.

“Security of online elections was proven in the last special election,” Morgan said.

When students log on to vote at the ASI Web site, they are assigned a unique identifier.

Anyone with a Saclink account, including professors, can get into the system to vote. But only those identified as students will be tallied, Morgan said.Robbie Abelon, secretary of state affairs, said security should not be a factor in the decision to move online.

“Voter fraud can always occur,” Abelon said. “Both traditional voting and online voting have equal chances of being disrupted. I support whichever one brings out the most voters.”

California State University, Fullerton, with a campus population comparable to that of Sacramento State, is one of the CSUs that has already made the switch to online voting.

Mona Mohammadi, ASI vice president at Fullerton, said the transition has been smooth and an improvement over traditional elections.

“I can tell you that in talking to several friends of mine, they all say how much better the online system is,” Mohammadi said.

“The results are given instantaneously so it is great for the students who are running for office. They are a lot more reliable as well since there is no hand counting involved,” Mohammadi said.

Fullerton’s online elections are managed by the University’s Information Technology Department. That way there can be no bias involved, Mohammadi added.

And as for security, Mohammadi said there haven’t been any problems with non-students getting into the system.

To some members of ASI, the most attractive aspect of moving to online elections is the amount of money ASI would save.

Morgan said December’s special online election cost between $2,000 and $2,500, much less than traditional elections. Morgan argues that moving online is the only logical option.

“I can’t see stepping back and paying $16,000 to $20,000 for traditional elections,” Morgan said.

The upcoming April election would cost $4,000 to $6,000 if held completely online.