The Web site hosting yesterday's referendum on student representation resulted in several complaints from students, including the restricted access of those not currently attending University Park campus.

The online system used to conduct the survey required voters to be undergraduate students currently registered at the University Park campus, which limited access from those currently studying abroad and in other circumstances.

"I'd love if we could allow them to vote, but it would start a whole new laundry list if we did," Andrew Reeve, Students for Real Advocacy president, said.

Reeve said Students for Real Advocacy requested the same system setup that Undergraduate Student Government (USG) has used in its annual elections.

He said the specific requirements to vote were put in place because it would be too difficult to create a system that included all students who would be affected by the results of yesterday's referendum.

Students for Real Advocacy -- an independent group created by USG President Galen Foulke -- administered the question, the second of a two-part referendum attempting to gain student support of a proposed replacement for USG, called the University Park Undergraduate Association.

Will Kerr, senior research programmer at the Schreyer Institute for Teaching Excellence, said the Web site was structured to restrict Penn State e-mail accounts that are not currently registered with the university. The Web site granted access only to students with a course registered at the University Park campus for the spring 2006 semester.

Shawn Gordon (junior-accounting) was one of the students restricted from the voting because he is studying abroad this semester.

Gordon was a previous USG senator and said via e-mail that he was disappointed he could not vote on the future of student representation simply because he is pursuing his education in London for the semester.

"I am fully aware that [the Web site's administrator] may not be capable of accommodating students not enrolled in a [University] Park class," he said. "But again, if such accommodations cannot be made, then it once again calls forth my disappointment that no student abroad was given advanced notice that technical limitations would prohibit him/her from voting nor that any alternative means of voting was offered to compensate."

He said these circumstances made the referendum's process less representative.

Gordon will be attending the University Park campus in the fall.

Kerr said that although the system standard includes graduate students, only votes from certified undergraduate students are used in the results, and all others are removed.

Other problem arose during yesterday's voting as well.

"We've had typical Web server problems," Kerr said.

Earlier in the day, the Web site rejected students, claiming they had already voted, but the Web site was referencing their participation in Thursday's survey.

Kerr said this was a problem in the automatic script and affected only 12 students, 10 of whom had successfully voted by 5 p.m. yesterday.

Even those involved in the referendum process had problems.

"I personally had trouble voting, but it all got fixed," Reeve said.

Danielle Traister (sophomore-English and history) said she attempted to vote four times and failed the first three.

"It wouldn't even let me log in," she said.

Traister said that as she tried to vote, her friends successfully voted on the same computer. After trying a different computer later in the day, she said, she was finally able to log on and vote.

The results of yesterday's referendum were unavailable by press time.