Princeton Undergraduate Student Government

After waiting for two weeks to receive bids on our RFP, I just received bad news that we received zero bids.  Zip.  Nada.  This puts us in a very bad position.

We've just spent about 2 months trying to find someone to develop the site, and after two months, we've come up with nothing more than a further-refined plan of what the system should do and how it should function, but still nobody to do it.  September 15, my unofficial deadline, is now two weeks closer and we haven't progressed much since July 9.

So where do we go from here?  First I'll take an inventory of what we do have:

What we have:

• A very detailed specification of what the system should function like
• A panel of supportive administrators including Ms. Griffin (Registrar) and Dean Dunne
• The support of OIT
• A newly-expanded team of talented IT Committee members
• A mandate to get this system completed by the class of 2013 elections this fall

What we need:

• Someone (or some people) who will develop the system

Given this, I'm considering what alternatives we have now.  We've been pursuing the comercial developer route, which has taken two months and yielded nothing.  I think the best alternative now would be to stop and look around.  Princeton is full of highly-talented coders who can develop this system without a sweat.  Is there a way to utilize this abundant resource?

We had already considered having students build the system, but we had decided against it when the Registrar expressed concerns about certifying results produced by a student-coded system.  Understandably, the Registrar has a reputation to protect, and it could be risky to put that reputation on the line with a system built by students.

So how can we overcome this problem?  My suggestion is that we have students develop it, but under the careful guidance of a committee of experts.  This is Princeton, and we are fortunate to have one of the nation's strongest computer science departments.  In fact, our very own Dr. Ed Felten and Dr. Andrew Appel gained national recognition by uncovering vulnerabilities in the Sequoia Advantage electronic voting machines used by the State of New Jersey.  Given all of this talent, one would think that Princeton could figure out how to run a reliable student government election...

My suggestion is that we form (very quickly!) a panel of these experts.  I have already been in contact with Dr. Brian Kernighan, a computer scientist whose reputation precedes him and the professor of COS 333, the class where students build web applications as their capstone project.  Dr. Kernighan expressed interest in the project, and recommended me to reach out to Dr. Felten and Dr. Appel.