When Berkeley High School (BHS) student Mexica Greco was called to a meeting on Monday, March 25, she assumed that her school would be announcing the results of the Associated Student Body (ASB) elections. A current sophomore, Greco was a candidate for Junior Class President; her campaign process was long and hard fought, complete with social media accounts, classroom visits, and an election convention.
But the meeting turned out to be far from what she expected. As she sat alongside the rest of the candidates, the student commissioner of elections — senior Robert Stern — told the group that a candidate for ASB president had faked over 550 votes for themself.
After the initial shock, Greco thought the news was funny. “Like, who would take their time to go into 500 people’s accounts and vote for themself?” she said. But her amusement quickly turned into anger as she recognized how the candidate had jeopardized both themself and the other candidates. “It was a really, really bad idea.”
The news of voter fraud spread rapidly across Berkeley High. Despite the incident’s extensive impact — 23 percent of eligible voters were hacked — the scandal did not involve extensive experience with technology. Because the default email password in the Berkeley Unified School District is based on student ID numbers, the candidate was easily able to guess students’ passwords, log into their accounts and fill out a Google Form used to collect votes.
This election was the first time BHS used electronic ballots for their ASB elections. And while administrators said that the fraudulent votes would have gone unnoticed with only paper ballots, Greco is adamant that the new system discouraged voting and over-complicated the process. “It was kind of messy, because, as you see, the whole election fraud happened. Just that fast,” she said. “If Berkeley High stayed with paper voting, it wouldn’t have happened.”
At Lick, technology plays a similar role in Student Council (StuCo) elections: ballots are electronic, and most candidates use social media to spread their campaign platforms throughout the student body. But, according to Christy Godinez-Jackson, technology has made the election process more straightforward and efficient — unlike at BHS.
Before StuCo elections had moved to online ballots, “We were just looking for a faster way — a more efficient way — to tally votes, because we would literally sit here and count for a couple of hours,” Godinez-Jackson said. But five years ago, The Center started using a program called Qualtrics. Besides speeding up the counting process, Godinez-Jackson has noted that it gives students a chance to vote until the end of the day, allowing them time to think about their vote. Rather than a decrease in voter turnout, she said Qualtrics ensures that students fill out their ballots correctly, resulting in more countable votes. And unlike at BHS, Lick does not use school-provided emails with predictable default passwords, making elections much more difficult to hack.
Another aspect of technology that has proven useful in running StuCo elections has been email, Godinez-Jackson said. By sending candidates detailed emails about every step in the campaign process — such as speech writing or the election fair — she ensures that students meet each deadline, a vital part of being a leader at Lick.
StuCo candidates have been using technology to run their campaigns for years — especially through social media. Godinez-Jackson helps the current Co-Presidents monitor candidates’ online presence, similar to the way campaign materials such as posters are monitored by faculty and staff on Lick’s campus.
Godinez-Jackson agrees that social media can be an effective form of communication because students most already check social media on a regular basis. In recent years, even The Center has found use for an Instagram page. “I find that students don’t read the e-Tiger as religiously as I would like them to,” she said. “[Instagram has been] very crucial, especially in the last year and a half, to get people to come out [to Center events].”
“People are looking to access information quickly. And the quickest way to do that is, you know, pop up their Instagram, put a story on Snapchat…I think it is crucial to your campaign in some capacity,” Godinez-Jackson said, even if that doesn’t mean creating specific pages for your campaign.
Gavin Pola ‘20 and Amaya Guillen ‘20, who ran for Co-President together and won, chose not to create an Instagram account for their campaign. “We felt like the idea of how many followers you have on this media page and how many people you outreach to through social media shouldn’t dictate how qualified you are as a candidate,” Pola said. He understands why so many candidates set up social media pages, but because he and Guillen weren’t running for a media-centric position like Community Networker, they didn’t feel the need to.
As one of the eight candidates for Community Networker, Justin Yee ‘20 appreciates how much technology can impact a campaign. Along with running-mate Jeannie Moreno ‘20, he used an Instagram page to produce mock-spotlight videos, advertise their platform, and post memes personalized to their campaign. Although he and Moreno ended up losing the race, they were able to prove their dedication to the role of Community Networker through social media.
“A lot of the stuff that the Community Networker does has to do with videos, like the spotlight videos, so it was a good platform to be able to experiment with videos and show people what I thought I was capable of doing,” Yee said. “I thought it added a level of credibility to what I could do.”
Roma Edwards ‘20 doesn’t use Instagram on a regular basis. But when she and classmate Nora Hylton ‘20 began their campaign for Student Inclusion Chair, Edwards re-downloaded the app. Although they didn’t win their election, using social media allowed them to talk about their plans in-depth — which they couldn’t necessarily do in a 400 word speech. “We’re not given that many opportunities to actually share what we want to do, so it was nice because we got to share our platform and our experience,” she said.
The impact of technology in the campaign process is universal. Greco remembers how she used Instagram polls, response boxes, and even memes to circulate her platform online. “It’s an easy way for people to see your goals that you want to achieve if you’re elected to the position,” she said.
And while technology may have played a major role in BHS’ election scandal, it was also crucial uncovering it. School officials initially noticed that something was wrong by looking at timestamps from the Google form: while most ballots were submitted at specific times, such as at lunch or right after school, there was a suspicious uptick in votes entered as late as 2:00 in the morning. They were also able to see that votes were submitted in alphabetical order by last name, a detail that would have been impossible to detect with paper ballots.
While Berkeley Unified School District maintains student confidentiality in regards to disciplinary measures, BHS Principal Erin Schweng assured the Berkeley High Jacket that the candidate — who confessed shortly after the March 25 meeting — would be held accountable for his actions.
Greco still considers technology like social media a mostly positive tool. But she recognizes the dangers it can pose — both to student council elections and the outside world.
“The fact that a 17-year-old can [hack their high school election] that easily?” she said. “What if people actually hacked the real presidential election that involves the entire United States? It can happen that easily.”
Godinez-Jackson agrees that technology can have a monumental impact on real-world politics, similar to the way social media influence StuCo elections. “I mean, think about the presidential election that’s coming up,” she said. “If you’re not using social media, …especially young people are not going to know to get out and vote for you.”
