Principal candidates answer questions in forum open to public BY KATHY JANG & HENRY SHANGGUAN
An investigation into the rigging of the March 4 ASB elections BY JACOB ANTONY & NIKITA DHESIKAN
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revote of the general election was held via paper ballot on March 14, after the March 4 election and the subsequent runoff for ASB Secretary were compromised. The original election had been held through the online voting system eduBallot, which requires students to login using their ID number and birthdate, a feature that perpetrators exploited. On March 6, Assistant Principal David Erwin noticed unusual patterns in the votes for the ASB secretary runoff election—an exceptionally large proportion of the student body had voted between 10 p.m. to 12 a.m. and three Internet Protocol (IP) addresses had cast 118 out of the 845 votes. When students logged onto eduBallot, some were unable to access the voting form. They were met with an error message that said they had already cast their votes. Junior Amy Fujiki said, “I was confused—it crossed my mind that someone may have taken my vote, but I �inally thought that it was just an error.” Erwin could not do anything about his initial suspicions until he had concrete evidence that the elections were tampered with. That con�irmation came with an anonymous student, who came forward with the knowledge that more students had the same problem as Fujiki. In collaboration with Computer Specialist Toan Phuong, the administration traced the suspect IP addresses. The addresses tracked back to an AT&T server in Concord, Calif., leading the administration to believe that they were spoofed. On March 8, the administration randomly selected around 30 students from the list of ID numbers used under the IP addresses in question. Each student was asked if they had voted, and many said that they had not. “After listening to those people say ‘No, I didn’t vote,’ and knowing from the data said that they did, it was just a shocking thing to hear,” said Erwin, “Democracy didnt’ happen that day.” He then met with senior ASB members in order to discuss possible next steps. A decision was made to send out an email informing the student body of the security compromise and the revote. “I was disappointed that someone would cheat in an election, and show such a lack of integrity,” ASB IDC Representative Arnav Mishra said. To avoid further issues, the senior of�icers and administration decided to use SCANTRON paper ballots for the revote. After the votes were cast, the ballots were collected and then counted in room 506 during �ifth period. The ballots were checked and counted by Erwin, school Psychologist Brittany Stevens, and Leadership Advisor Andrea Badger. The forms were then fed into two
SCANTRON machines that tracked the votes for each candidate. Four senior ASB members and two Epic staffers were also present to ensure the transparency of the three-hour long process. The results were announced on March 15. The new ballot listed all the original candidates, with the exception of junior Andrew Huang, who was originally one of three candidates for ASB Secretary. Huang declined to comment on how he was dropped from the ballot. As of now, administrators do not how the perpetrators obtained the ID number and birthdays. Some possible sources that were named are the yearbook database of ID numbers, a list from the Job Shadow program and various clubs. Currently, the administration has suspended at least one student. The investigation, however, is still ongoing. Erwin declined to comment on the state of the investigation, any leads being pursued, or any suspected students. To combat the potential for future voter fraud, administrator and ASB members have discussed having students register to vote, using their own usernames or passwords. Another alternative would be linking the online voting service to the FUHSD network, or continuing with a paper ballot system. The administration has stated that the school will be using paper ballots for the upcoming class elections.
For the full version of this story, please visit lhsepic.com. For more on this topic, see “Fear of falling into the pit of failure” on page 5.
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fter reviewing feedback from the Principal Selection Candidates’ Forum on March 11, District Superintendent Polly Bove will conduct further interviews with the individual candidates if necessary and aims to select the �inal candidate to present to the district board by the board meeting on March 19. Principal Gail Davidson announced on Jan. 9 her plans to retire following the 2012 to 2013 school year. After reviewing dozens of applications, screening candidate pro�iles and conducting interviews with a board comprising district of�icials, community members, administrators, teachers and students, Superintendent Bove narrowed down the choices to three �inalists: Maria Jackson, assistant principal of curriculum and instruction at Lynbrook; Di Yim, chief academic of�icer at Fremont High School and Jim Dwyer, principal of Foothill High School. “Selecting the principals is the most important job I have,” said Bove, “The �ive principals we have are some of the most important people in this district.” During the forum, held in the Lynbrook auditorium and moderated by district Director of Human Resources Tom Avvakumovits, each candidate answered �ive questions: an introductory question regarding the metaphor of high schools as “a collection of educational entrepreneurs held together by a common parking lot”; two randomly selected questions regarding their teaching experiences, role models, the school’s extracurricular activities and classi�ied employees; and two concluding questions about the candidates’ personal lives and plans for their �irst 100 days if selected as principal. Each candidate spent about 20 minutes answering these questions. Following the forum, audience members received the opportunity to provide written feedback regarding each candidate’s strengths and weaknesses, as well as topics for further discussion. District of�icials will revie all feedback before Bove presents her �inal recommendation to the district board. “Whenever the superintendent makes a selection of the principal, it’s very important that we get broad based input,” said Avvakumovits. The district board will subsequently decide whether or not to accept Bove’s recommendation. For more on this topic, see “Three candidates, one position” on page 2.
Girls’ Basketball •pg. 13 JOEY LI—EPIC