Twitter
Facebook
Reddit
Digg
Tell us what you think!Send a letter to the editor about this or any other article in The Maine Campus.
Student Sen. Chris Knoblock and current Vice President of Student Organizations Anthony Ortiz have been named as the victors in the Thursday election for student body president and vice president, respectively.
However, Knoblock, his opponent student Sen. Nelson Carson and vice presidential runner-up Ryan Gavin are contesting the legitimacy of the election. Over the weekend, Gavin drafted a formal contest form and submit it to the Fair Elections and Practices Committee of the General Student Senate.
“The results may or may not show the actual outcome,” Knoblock said in a conference call on Friday with Gavin and The Maine Campus. “According to these results, I won the election. But, at the same time, I don’t see the results of that election being completely and totally representative of the student body.”
Gavin said he fielded more than 160 complaints of voting boxes not being available to students on their FirstClass desktops. He also said an e-mail was promised to be sent by current Student Body President Brian Harris to all students about the election’s issues and how to vote.
The message ended up being placed in that FirstClass election box instead — making it invisible to the students who did not have the box in the first place.
The complaint, provided by Gavin to The Maine Campus, lists three subsections with specific complaints against the University of Maine Information Technologies Department for its handling of the election on FirstClass, against Harris and against the FEPC and its chair, Skye Landry.
Knoblock and Carson both confirmed that they would co-sign the document with Gavin while Ortiz voiced opposition to their efforts.
Ortiz, reached Friday, said the problems with the election did not put any one candidate at a disadvantage.
“The technical issues affected everybody — everybody had people that were trying to vote,” he said. “I obviously think everyone should have the right to vote if they want to. I also think there were opportunities for any student who really wanted to vote to go to [vote in person at] the Wade Center.”
“There were three different options if you really wanted to vote,” he continued, referencing online elections, paper ballots and absentee ballots.
Gavin and Knoblock responded harshly to Ortiz’s characterization of the vote.
“That right there embodies what’s wrong with student government right now,” Gavin said. “The notion that it was unfair to everybody so it’s fair to everybody — I think that’s complete crap.”
“There’s no way to quantify how unfair it was to each person and that’s the real problem here,” Knoblock said. “It kind of does disappoint me.”
The election tallies were reasonably close, as Knoblock defeated fellow student Sen. Nelson Carson 891-762, while Ortiz beat Gavin 931-886. 2,011 votes were cast by students on FirstClass as opposed to 14 in person.
The election was marred early on by a 37-minute delay in establishing the online voting system.
According to FirstClass administrator Colleen Willett Martin, students who tried to vote when the voting period began at 9 a.m. were unable to do so. A database problem prevented students from voting online until 9:37 a.m. The deadline for the election’s end was extended to 6 p.m. to compensate for time in which students could not vote.
“All of those problems should render the election completely illegitimate,” Gavin said. “The things that we saw yesterday were completely ridiculous.”
Gavin said complaints about the election on subjects such as Information Technologies are heard by the Fair Elections Practices Commission, but complaints about the FEPC’s handling of the election itself are heard by the General Student Senate. Since he expects to author his document as a complaint against both, the senate will hear it either at Tuesday’s regularly scheduled meeting or at a special meeting within the week.
“I think the senate needs to know what’s going on here and senate needs to decide,” Gavin said.
Knoblock said though he was “upset” at Ortiz’s remarks, it would not affect their working relationship should the current election results stand.
