Senate elections flawed

Despite some online voting problems, the Students’ Association Senate and Freshman Class Council elections concluded Wednesday night. Elections ran from Monday through Wednesday night at a table in Wilson Commons and online.”The results posted tonight are in no way final,” Chief of Staff, Elections Committee Chair and sophomore Alex Pearlman said. “Due to some system problems we have about 100 paper ballots – all of the races are subject to change.”The unofficial results for Senate are as follows. Class of 2005 Senator Alex Brody, Class of 2006 Senator Princy Thottathil, Fraternity Quad Senator Ian Areces, Graduate Living Center Senator Gordon Arsenoff, Off Campus Senator Crystal Dixon, Residential Quad Senators Tyson Ford and Keisha Rolle, Towers Senators Brian Clancy and Bijan Pajoohi, Hill Court Senators Steve D’Amico and Kristin Martin and Susan B. Anthony Residence Halls Senators Hannah Geswein and Matt Goldblatt.Unofficially, Areces, a write-in candidate, won over Stephanie Yurchyk on the Fraternity Quad by more than 20 votes.”I am excited to welcome the new class of senators,” Speaker of the Senate and senior Tom Hayes said. “I am confident that these people will be enthusiastic and work hard to help resolve student issues.”The unofficial results for Freshman Class Council are Brian Poon, Shweta Mahajan, Gregory Meditz, Joseph Panze, Julia Gurariy, Tao-Hung Chang, Susan Barnish, Aditi Kadakia and Martin Fernandez.”I’m very excited to begin working with the new class council,” Assistant Director for Academic Programs and Class Council Advisor Laura Ballou said. “There were 17 candidates for nine spots. These students are eager – they have a lot of ideas to build community within the class.”According to Pearlman, all known problems were fixed quickly and efficiently. No official complaints have been submitted about election problems.Some of the problems included 3-2 students being unable to vote. “We sent an e-mail out to all 3-2 students Tuesday afternoon,” Pearlman said. “In the Registrar’s system they are considered graduate students – however they should still be able to vote. They were invited to come to the voting table in Wilson Commons to vote by paper ballot.”Another problem was that candidates could not vote for themselves. When the online voting system first went live a few years ago this was a problem, but was subsequently fixed. Candidates were allowed to vote by paper ballot for themselves.The voting system was recently moved to a different server. Initially the link on the Hive’s Web site did not reflect this, but it was updated within a few hours of the election beginning.”I think that when the voting system was changed to another server it is possible that an older version was posted,” SA President and senior Pete Nabozny said. “The problems reported had been previously addressed.”Overall turnout was at roughly 19 percent, with 585 online votes and approximately 100 paper ballots cast.The results for all elections will not be certified until Monday because Steve Song, the elections coordinator for Information Technology Services, will be unable to verify the validity of votes as he is out of the office.Senate Seat UncertainIn a related event, it is unclear at this point who will be awarded the 2006 Senate seat. Junior Nat Powell resigned from that position because he is studying abroad this semester. Two people, juniors Joe Cala, who ran last fall, and Princy Thottathil believe that they are entitled to the seat and intend to file an appeal with the All-Campus Judicial Council for a decision.”The junior student body deserves the right to choose who they want to represent them,” Thottathil said. “The only way that this can be done fairly is to have another election. If I were not named to the seat or if there were not a runoff election, I would file an appeal with ACJC. I wanted to be on senate this term, so I would have run for a different seat if this one was already filled.””I received the third highest number of votes in the spring 2004 election for seat of senator of the Class of 2006,” Cala said. “Therefore, according to bylaws, the current opening in the senate should have been rightfully offered to me before being posted on the election ballot.””I am currently and have always been prepared and willing to accept such a seat, however, no offer was ever made to me after the vacancy was recognized,” he added.Cala added, “I believe that the senatorial seat for the Class of 2006 is rightfully mine. My decision to contest these results is not a personal attack on Princy, but I feel that some action must be taken.”Article 1, Section 1, Clause G, Part 3 and subsections, the relevant bylaw, reads, “Vacant seats shall be filled by the person who received the next highest number of votes in the Senator’s election. If that person is unable or unwilling to accept the seat, the vacancy shall be filled by the election or appointment of a person from the representative board of that constituency. If no such board exists, a new election shall be held at the earliest time of convenience.”As of now I have not received an official request or appeal based on a violation of the Constitution or bylaws,” Chief Justice of ACJC and senior Dave Iseminger said. “Until then, I have nothing to comment on.”Keesing can be reached atjkeesing@campustimes.org.