The right of a student to vote for their leaders by means of a secret ballot is vital to any democracy. Unfortunately, the Joint Election Committee has little respect for students’ privacy.

First of all, I had to give my Social Security number in order to vote. This is an unnecessary privacy intrusion. I do not see what purpose this serves because students already have to show their GWorld card to verify their identity and that they are eligible to vote.

To make matters worse, the pollsters write our Social Security number on a sheet of paper, next to our names, where the 25 people who come after us to vote can readily observe our private information. This is just a hazardous practice.

With a person’s Social Security number and only a vague idea of when that person was born because GW personal identification number is based on birthdays, someone could easily misuse GWeb’s Information System to add or drop classes from a schedule without permission.

Using our personal information in this fashion leaves students vulnerable to security risks that could easily be avoided.
-Gerald Fitzhume
sophomore