HoCo Faculty Adviser Comments on Technical Difficulties, Rumors

Angelo State University’s Homecoming Committee Faculty Adviser Brianna Flores offered insight on recent technical issues with the homecoming voting link and possible controversies with the final vote.  

On Oct. 18, students at ASU received two different emails regarding the final vote for Homecoming King and Queen. The first email, sent in the morning, encountered technical difficulties, causing a second link to be sent out later in the afternoon. Exact times may vary because ASU IT sends the link out in waves. In the second email, the ASU Homecoming Committee apologized for the technical difficulties with the first link and encouraged students to vote again using the second link. 

The process in which students get elected starts with each ASU student organization nominating a king and queen. Depending on the student organization, some nominate a queen, a king or both. The first round’s ballot includes all nominees, from which voters pick their top five. After the top five candidates for both king and queen are determined, the second round begins, in which voters select their top pick for king and queen. The technical difficulties occurred in the second round of the voting process.

Rumors have speculated that students used both links to vote, which doubled the number of votes, and that all faculty members had access to the link, allowing them to also vote. 

“[The first link] had like an overload, and then I also wanted to make sure that only students were voting. So, I had to, like, basically pause it to make sure all my boxes were checked correctly,” Flores said. Flores said that the original link was not used in the calculation for king or queen.

Flores went on to explain that the program the Homecoming Committee uses to calculate the homecoming votes, Qualtrics, calculates the votes through percentages. Last year, Qualtrics was used, and there were technical issues as well. Flores explained that overloads happen with this program, so ASU’s IT department sends the link out in waves to prevent overloads from happening. 

“I am working on fixing it,” Flores said. 

Flores expressed that it was a possibility for some ASU staff and faculty to vote because some students are also ASU staff or faculty. However, staff and faculty, such as professors, who are not students, are not allowed to participate in the voting process. Flores continued to express that the votes from the first link were not counted, and only the votes from the second link determined the winner. 

Because of these issues, it was rumored that there was an alleged 700-vote gain in favor of Kameron Wiese, ASU’s student body president and the now homecoming king. There were no rumors regarding the Homecoming Queen Alexandra Solis Valenzuela.

Wiese claimed that he did not know about these allegations. 

All information given above is for a reader’s interpretation. Rumors are neither true nor false until confirmed. As of right now, the rumored information cannot be confirmed, but opinions may be formed.