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Last semester’s student body presidential election has become this semester’s blame game. Who said what to who and who did what when is being challenged and argued, which left the General Student Senate without permanent leadership.
Last Thursday, in the Bumps Room, the Senate gathered for an emergency meeting to hear of the latest news regarding an appeal filed by Eli Young, who lost the presidential election by 61 votes to Kate O’Brien last semester.
President pro tempore Elizabeth Anderson conducted the meeting. She assured everyone that this was not an emergency situation.
“Student government is not at a standstill.” Anderson said. “We’re not leaderless.”
Though their mailboxes at the Wade Center have been labeled and the election results certified by a notary public, O’Brien and the winner of the vice-presidential election, Brigham McNaughton, were not sworn in last week because there was no one officially called the planned meeting. The ceremony was then postponed due to Young’s appeal.
Anderson said the appeal would be heard by the Senate at this Tuesday’s meeting at 6 p.m. in the Multi-purpose room of Memorial Union.
Young has already had his appeal rejected by the Fair Elections Practices Commission, which is chaired by Eric Degrass. Anderson said the FEPC did not have the authority to hear the appeal in the first place, much less reject it, since the appeal was against the commission.
Vice-chairperson of the FEPC, Carmen Tatis, said the mistake was not intended. She said the FEPC thought the Senate could hear the appeal, but that the FEPC would make the final decision. They also did not consider Degrass a representative of the entire commission, she said.
In his appeal, Young made three points. First he said that Degrass violated Article IV, Section 10, Part A of the FEPC guidelines which states: “Unofficial results may be announced at the conclusion of the ballot counting,” by allegedly informing candidates O’Brien and Hill, at around 3 p.m. on Election Day, that the election was very close. Young claims he was not informed of the closeness of the election until 5:45 that evening, which was 15 minutes before the polls were supposed to close.
According to Tatis, O’Brien had asked Degrass about how the election was going. Degrass said that he couldn’t tell her. After O’Brien said, “Please,” Degrass said that it was close. Tatis said he was lying because O’Brien was well ahead at this time.
Tatis says that the majority of votes were cast between 11 a.m. and 2 p.m., before O’Brien was allegedly informed of the closeness of the election. Tatis further said it was Young’s decision not to continue campaigning.
“Any smart candidate would have been campaigning to the very end,” Tatis said. “[Degrass] shouldn’t have said that, but I don’t think that’s incriminating evidence.”
The second concern Young mentions in his appeal is that O’Brien violated Article IV, section 5, Part B of the FEPC guidelines which states, “No campaign material shall be allowed in any polling place 12 hours before the opening of the polls.” Young said O’Brien posted fliers in the computer cluster across from The Maine Campus office, which was off-limits to candidates to post fliers in, and that she posted e-mails in FirstClass promoting herself. Tatis said O’Brien was in class when Young says she posted the fliers and that anyone could have done that, even someone for an opposing candidate. It is also in question as to whether FirstClass should be considered a polling place.
The final concern in Young’s appeal is that Article IV, Section 2, Part A of the FEPC guidelines, which states, “All members in good standing of the activity fee paying, undergraduate student body shall be eligible to vote,” was also violated. Young said that all students were eligible, but that they did not have equal opportunity to vote because many students did not have the proper icon appear on their First Class desktop.
Tatis said this problem occurred because the student in charge of getting all the icons on everyone’s desktop was new. Tatis herself and Degrass were also new, and that the process was met with problems and delays.
Young ended his appeal by calling for a for a run-off between himself and O’Brien during the Spring semester, because of the closeness of votes between them.
It was made clear at the emergency senate meeting that the candidacy of O’Brien and McNaughton is set in stone and that another election or run-off would not occur. The Senate wants to hear the appeal because those are the rules.
During the meeting, it was also made clear that only Young’s first point, his objection against Degrass, was considered valid and would be discussed at Tuesday’s senate meeting, since his other two objections are too hard to prove.
Tatis said she heard that O’Brien is not taking the controversy very well.
“She’s not doing that great,” Tatis said. “She must feel so robbed … and she has the right to feel robbed.”
McNaughton, however, said he is proud of the Senate for not going through with the swearing in of himself and O’Brien before the appeal was heard.
“I have full faith that the Senate has really stepped up to the plate and that they will resolve this,” he said.
Tatis believes that this whole controversy was the Senate’s fault in the first place. She said they appointed herself and Degrass at the end of October, two or three weeks later than they should have. She said this affected the entire time table. Though the election itself was put off, Tatis said the FEPC was faced with many problems because of the Senate’s delay.
“It wasn’t our fault … the problem is within the Senate,” Tatis said.
Tatis said that the FEPC is going to rewrite their guidelines to make things more clear and avoid issues like this in the future. She hopes the Senate does the same with their constitution.
