Following Students’ Association Senate and Presidential elections last semester, UR’s student government has been plagued with delays and controversy over voting procedures and outcomes.
First, the All-Campus Judicial Council released their decision March 3 voiding the Senate elections, deeming them unconstitutional since not all students were able to vote. Further, junior and At-Large candidate Atul Gulati was disqualified for failing to follow election bylaws.
The ACJC’s decision stated that the online voting system prevented many students from voting and no clear or consistent alternative was made widely Continued from Page 1
available. To complicate the elections further, only 12 percent of the school – 426 undergraduates – voted in the elections.
Gulati was disqualified for hanging campaign posters in Wilson Commons, which is against election bylaws.
“My goal was to be re-elected as 2004 senator or at-large senator, I thought they would redo one of these specific elections because I had been personally wronged,” disqualified candidate Atul Gulati said.
“I believe that flyers hung up for only 25 minutes had no effect on the At-Large election,” he said.
“We have full confidence that the Senate can design and run a fair election. They can get it done fairly and quickly,” former ACJC Chief Justice and senior Morrissey said.
The full election results are available at www.sa.rochester.edu.
Presidential elections
In the SA presidential elections, bylaw violations came up again. This time, canidates senior Steve Duszlak and junior Noah Kushel violated the bylaws by sending mass emails to promote their campaigns.
Junior Chris Calo, who ran against three other candidates, won the election with 465 of 872 votes after a delay in declaring a definite winner.
“It’s going to take some time to get comfortable, but I really think I can do a good job,” Calo said.
Yunis can be reached at tyunis@campustimes.org.
