TPAC officials decided last week to administer the online survey, which consists of six questions aimed at determining where, why and how often students, faculty and staff seek night parking on campus.
But Student Body President Justin Young said there is obviously a demand for night parking but that the survey does nothing to assess whether there is a need to regulate night parking.
"The survey is not really exploring the need," Young said. "It's exploring the demand. That goes along with their desire to have students pay for night parking."
Student Body Vice President Rudy Kleysteuber said he is concerned that the survey does not address safety. He said he also is worried that the results will be used to justify selling night parking permits.
But Dorothy Ariail, a student representative on TPAC, said students do not need to worry that their answers will be twisted. "There are no right answers -- the survey is merely informational."
Cheryl Stout, director of the parking division of the Department of Public Safety, said the purpose of the survey is primarily to find out who is driving back to campus at night, how often and why.
Student leaders also raised concerns about the survey's format. "Ultimately I think the survey is flawed because anyone can go in and vote as many times as they want, however they want," Young said.
Lynn Williford, director of institutional research, said she is aware of the possibility that some people who feel strongly about the issue will submit multiple votes, skewing the results. But she said the problem has been addressed. "We do get the (Internet protocol) address of the computer, and we go through the list routinely and delete any duplicates."
But deletion of multiple submissions from a single computer does not fix the problem because one student can still vote from multiple computers, said Student Body Secretary Dustyn Baker.
