Georgetown University’s Newspaper of Record since 1920

The Hoya

Georgetown University’s Newspaper of Record since 1920

The Hoya

Georgetown University’s Newspaper of Record since 1920

The Hoya

‘Technical Difficulties’ Mar Student Association Election

Charles Nailen/The Hoya GUSA election commissioner Ramya Murali (SFS ’03) explains the election situation to the crowd of students in Sellinger Lounge Monday evening.

The results of Monday’s election for GUSA president and vice-president were postponed until this evening after election board officials learned that the e-mail ballot had not been sent to the entire student body.

“Unfortunately, due to technical difficulties, a portion of the student body was not sent the e-mail ballot,” Ramya urali (SFS ’03), GUSA election commissioner, said.

Students who did not receive the e-mail would be notified by 9 a.m. with the opportunity to vote until 8 p.m., Murali said. “We will re-announce election results tomorrow night [Tuesday] at 9:00 [p.m.],” she said.

“There wasn’t any technical problem,” Justin Palmer, administrator for the Saxa Server, said. “For every election, Saxa [the server conducting the technical aspect of the election] gets a list of eligible voters from the GUSA Election Commissioner. We allow only people on that list to vote. We then send e-mail to that list about the election. This year, we got an incomplete list.”

Although the University Registrar updates its master list every day, Murali said that she did not have a recent version of this list.

Palmer said that the new e-mail ballot would be sent after receiving an updated master undergraduate list from the registrar, provided he had the necessary list before 10 a.m.

Murali stressed that there would be no campaigning for the next 24 hours. Any candidates found in violation would be disqualified, she said.

“Steve [de Man] and I just want it to be the most fair election possible,” Brian Morgenstern (COL ’05), presidential candidate, said.

“The problem was handled well and very professionally,” Tim Nunziata (MSB ’04), vice presidential candidate, said. “I look forward to tomorrow when we can sort everything out.”

The announcement frustrated the nearly 200 students who gathered in Sellinger Lounge to hear the results last night.

“I think GUSA has made a mockery of their own election,” Pete Stolkman (MSB ’04) said. “How can they expect higher voter turnout when this happens?”

By 8:00 p.m. on Monday, 2,687 people had voted, according to Palmer, which is slightly less than the 2,766 votes cast in last year’s election. Murali said that “turnout so far has been very good.” Palmer speculated that as many as 300 students did not receive the e-mail ballot yesterday.

“Hopefully, next year the system will be set up on StudentAccess+, where errors will be less likely to happen and things will be easier,” Mason Ayer (SFS ’03), GUSA vice president, said.

Controversy shrouded the election early on when one ticket dropped out due to concerns about election rules favoring GUSA insiders. Candidates John Gahbauer (COL ’04) and Kyle Brown (COL ’04) said that dirty politics and complex election rules forced them the exit the election.

“It didn’t seem possible to run a fair and competitive campaign where we could bring our issues and ideas into focus,” Gahbauer said. “The campaign culture is such that candidates’ time and energy is spent instead on finding ways to exploit the loopholes of the rules.”

Gahbauer said he felt that too much campaigning focused on election ploys promoted by complicated election laws, which he said should be rewritten to eliminate loopholes.

“They need to limit what sorts of things candidates can do, instead of saying what they can’t do, which leaves room for lots of loopholes,” he said.

He said that complex and confusing restrictions lead to dirty campaigning. “I’m sure that none of the candidates actually wanted to play dirty,” he said. “They just felt that they had to, in order to remain competitive.”

Candidates Josh Waller (COL ’04) and Jackie Keys (COL ’04) also dropped out, citing last weekend’s snowstorm as the reason. “A fairly large amount of our core group, including our campaign manager, were prevented from returning to campus due to crippling weather system which we experienced last week,” Waller said.

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