Some people involved in the Undergraduate Student Government election said USG needs to look into eliminating loopholes that may have allowed ineligible people to vote in elections last Wednesday.

"The elections commission will need to look at (improper town voting)," said USG President-elect Mike King.

One student, who wished to remain anonymous, said he was asked to vote even though he was ineligible. He said a friend of his working on former USG presidential candidate Erich May's campaign called him on election day asking him to vote for May at a town polling site where there are no checksheets. The student said he chose not to vote.

May said his campaign did not operate a phone bank and they did not make phone calls on election day, so if a call was made, it would have been without the campaign team's knowledge.

Only full- and part-time undergraduate students are eligible to vote in USG elections. Student ID cards are used to determine whether someone is eligible to vote. The cards are marked after voting to prevent students from voting twice.

At dorm polls there are check sheets with the ID numbers of all eligible voters from that area. The ID numbers on the card are checked against the numbers on the list, and problems have occurred at town polling sites with no check sheets.

Jitu Modi, elections commissioner for voting and tallying, said the University does not provide the commission with lists of undergraduates living off campus. At these sites the only check is to mark the student's ID cards as they vote.

This leaves people an opportunity to cast invalid ballots. Any ineligible person with a Penn State ID can cast a ballot, and students with two ID cards can vote twice.

Head Election Commissioner Scott Payne said the problem should be examined, but that it would be difficult to stop because about 20,000 eligible voters live off campus and compiling an accurate list would be complicated.

"At this point in time, with the way the elections have been run since USG was founded -- using ID cards -- there is really no way for us to stop this from taking place," said Payne, who is also president of the Association of Residence Hall Students.

As for students using multiple ID cards to vote more than once, he said, "As long as the registrar's office has let them have two ID cards, there is nothing we can do."

Any student who loses an ID card can get a replacement, and some students have two and possibly more, said Edward Du Mond, office services specialist at the registrar's office.

King said the solution would be to compile a list of eligible voters who live downtown, similar to the ones used at dorm voting sites. But he said making the list could be expensive and there will always be a small margin of error caused by improper voting.

May said not much can be done about town voting problems, but he disagrees with the way poll workers are selected. These people should be jointly chosen by the candidates to reduce the chance that students working at the polls will favor a candidate, he said.

Former USG presidential candidate Carina Defferrire, Latino Caucus president, said it upsets her that someone would try to cast an invalid ballot, but it may be too difficult to prevent.

Robert O'Connor, associate professor of political science, said it is possible in almost any election for a person to cast an invalid ballot, and if a person wants to, there are ways to work around the election laws.

But he said in an election where several thousand votes are cast, such as the USG election, "It is very unlikely that one could steal enough votes to make a difference in the outcome of the election."