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University of Maine Student Government overturned contested student body executive election results at its Nov. 2 meeting, instead approving a plan to search for an alternative way to hold a new election. The decision came on the day when the senate welcomed several new senators to the fold.
The decision to hold a new election followed a joint complaint filed by three candidates — former senators Nelson Carson and Chris Knoblock, as well as Vice Presidential candidate Ryan Gavin — who asserted the elections held on FirstClass were “inoperative,” that an e-mail informing students of problems was not sent out to every individual student and that the Fair Elections Practices Committee failed to run an efficient election.
Gavin, who had appeared in the senate chambers before the election to express displeasure with a perceived lack of action by the FEPC to fix issues within its guidelines, stressed that the complaint was not about trying to change the outcome of the election.
“The reason why this complaint is in front of you this evening is not to steal the election, not to change the results, not to change anything that happened — but to do it right,” he said.
Gavin said he and other candidates had heard from some 200 students who were unable to vote due to technical difficulties with FirstClass. Given this, they felt holding a new election through a third party was the best available option.
Knoblock, who won the presidential election, saw a new election as imperative.
“The easy thing to do would be to walk away now and say, ‘I won, that’s it, it’s over, we’ll work on something new,’” he said. “I’m here because I’m willing to risk my status as president-elect of this organization in order to make sure the right thing is done.”
Much of the meeting covered problems encountered with FirstClass on the morning of Oct. 28. Lauri Sidelko, director of Alcohol and Drug Education Programs, fielded questions on behalf of FirstClass administrator Colleen Maguire, who is in charge of running elections on the system. She explained the newer FirstClass client upgrade encountered communication problems with the system, which was running an older version.
While no student could vote before 9:38 a.m. Oct. 28, restarting FirstClass after that point was supposed to fix any problems. Sidelko also said Maguire knew FirstClass was inappropriate for holding elections, a revelation to which senate President Brian Harris objected.
“Colleen and the IT [FirstClass] is a third-party… that we’re trusting to hold a fair election for us,” he said. “Her saying that this is a 14-year-old system that doesn’t work … never once was that told to us before the election happened.”
Harris also addressed the second issue with the complaint – that an e-mail that was supposed to be sent to every student instead was posted as a message in the FirstClass election box — was a result of miscommunication with Maguire. Unable to physically send out an e-mail to the student body, it was Harris’ understanding that the FirstClass personnel would send one out through Dean of Students Robert Dana’s mailbox.
Many senators felt the charges asserting elections were not run smoothly were unfounded given the pre-existing and unreported problems with FirstClass. Vice President of Student Entertainment Joseph Nabozny said FirstClass and IT officials were difficult to work with, while Skye Landry, who serves as chairperson of the FEPC, said she felt the elections were never taken seriously by Maguire.
Landry also addressed accusations that the election was faulty because she was present to oversee the paper ballot box at all times, explaining she had left FEPC members in her place. She also said she was perplexed at the number of individuals who contacted Gavin, Knoblock and Carson to complain about election difficulties.
“Any of those 200 complaints should have came to me. I will make it clear right now that I received eight,” she said, explaining that all of those who contacted her had their IT problems solved.
The senate then deliberated about how to address the complaints. Sen. Mary Emmi said she felt most senators could agree the election was flawed and the senate should act accordingly.
“What this body needs to decide to do is what is most fair,” she said. “Maybe this is the fuel to the fire that we need to really fix the election process.”
Newly elected Sen. Mark Brunton agreed, urging the need for new elections.
“How can this body move forward with officers that it’s not sure were elected within the rules?” he asked.
Though many senators agreed with Emmi and Brunton, there was little consensus on how to implement a new election. Ideas included Gavin’s proposal to hire a third party to conduct elections, to hire someone to reprogram FirstClass and to holding a paper ballot only election in the Memorial Union.
Sen. Alex Ortiz objected to overturning the vote if this would mean implementing a paper ballot election.
“You have to understand — it’s going to be a logistical nightmare,” he explained. “Is it going to be open for people to come over and just take a ballot and go photocopy it 1,000 times and just stuff [the ballot box]?”
Ortiz eventually proposed the solution the senate agreed upon. Under his proposal, the FEPC and GSS executives have 48 hours to either hire a third party or determine if redoing elections on FirstClass – which many senators felt was unlikely — is a viable solution. If they are unable to find an alternative, elections will be conducted on paper ballots.
While a timetable has been set to determine how the new elections will be held, no deadline has been set for when the actual election must take place because the senate has not determined the procedure to be used.
After the meeting, Gavin hailed the senate’s decision.
“The best interest of the students and the right thing to do was to make sure this was done right,” he said, re-emphasizing his belief that a third party source is the most efficient and fair way to run an election. “The very idea that the FirstClass system can be fixed I think is pretty ridiculous.”
Harris, however, was more cautious.
“I think we need to wait and see if we can come up with a solution before we can say that the one we come up with is more fair than the one that we had,” he said after the meeting, adding that paper ballots were not a “feasible” remedy.
Despite the issues with FirstClass, Gavin emphasized that his complaint with the FEPC was not out of a desire to see the election results come before the senate.
“The reason we did not bring the complaint before the FEPC — the reason we did not complain just about IT — was because we did not have faith in Skye Landry’s leadership to successfully resolve this problem,” he said.
Also speaking after the meeting, Vice President Ross Wolland defended FEPC.
“I think the election had fundamental flaws to it. Let’s say, for instance, that IT had worked out — that would have been a smooth, efficient and well put together election,” he said. “I think Skye deserves to be applauded for that because this is not an easy thing to do.”
Bangor Daily News