The University of Maine Student Government (UMSG) released a statement relaying that the votes for the 2026 to 2027 Student Body President and Vice President executive election were deemed invalid. Commissioner of Fair Elections Practices Zoe Stankevitz expressed that the combination of software service problems and inaccurate data from CampusGroups made it unethical to continue with the election. The remedial election will take place in the Wade Center of the Memorial Union from 8 a.m. March 10 to 5 p.m., March 11, with in-person voting that Wednesday from 11 a.m. to 3 p.m. The Maine Campus spoke with UMSG staff to understand the root of the error and how UMSG will go forward.
Qualtrics XM, the software used to conduct the survey, reportedly has removed security features that left the “election vulnerable to allowing non-undergraduate students to access the survey,” wrote Stankevitz in her statement. The Maine Campus has not been able to clarify what security features were removed. CampusGroups does not routinely delete the user information of former undergraduate students, which UMSG President Keegan Tripp suggested is what allowed non-students to vote.
“You can select undergraduate status, but it doesn’t remove previously undergraduate students. So, because of the change in Qualtrics, when that was sent to more than just undergrads, grad students could vote.”
This same method has been used in prior elections without any errors. Updates to the software have not only reopened the voting this spring, but will now be fully eliminated from future elections.
Current Vice President Cynthia Shelmerdine and Sen. Hazel Sparks will run uncontested through this voting period, offering written responses to the Maine Campus before the votes re-open March 10. Shelmerdine brought up one sign of inaccuracy, when a singular IP address made a bot to input multiple votes for themself. This, however, was not the ultimate reason for the revote, given there are security mechanisms to flag for bots.
“I was initially pretty distraught between the security issue with graduate and non-students voting, and then students that created a bot to vote for themselves every 11 seconds, however now I’m fine as it didn’t affect too much. While this interruption as an isolated event wasn’t that big of a bump, on top of dealing with other issues UMSG is facing behind the scenes, it just added to probably the worst week for a student government officer in a while,” wrote Shelmerdine.
Given that there was no way to distinguish graduate student votes and undergraduate student votes, Stankevitz deemed the votes invalid. For their goal of transparency, the student body was alerted.
Tripp reflected on the importance of prioritizing electoral integrity to legally certify results.
“This is a good reminder that student government elections are real elections that have legal consequences. In order to be officially certified by our lawyer, it [the vote] has to have integrity. As they report their positions to the Internal Revenue Service (IRS), transparency with the election is vital,” said Tripp.
Sparks wrote on this in a response to the Maine Campus, sharing that “there are significant legal issues involved with using faulty results or forgoing a new election” and that it would “also set an unprofessional precedent for UMSG and weaken the trust of those we work with, particularly our outside contacts behind the scenes.”
Uncontested or invalid, a fair election has to take place for the legal induction of the new president and vice president. Moving forward, a precedent for fair voting has brought a new care to student government elections, with Shelmerdine writing, “We will not be using them [Qualtrics] in the future and we will ensure this mistake will not happen again for future elections. In the future we will explain how the new voting works before it is put out to the student body for general elections.”
While sympathizing with the inconvenience of voting twice, Tripp still thinks there is reason to show up to vote.
“There’s good information about platforms and kind of, if nothing else, when you open up that ballot, you’ll get to see who’s going to represent you for the next year,” said Tripp. He continued with how a competitive election is “one of the best ways” to engage with student government, but expressed confidence within UMSG regarding the duo.
Sparks has her name on the ballot for the first time. Being an unusual election, uncontested and extended, she wrote to the Maine Campus about this experience.
“It definitely wasn’t supposed to happen this way, but I wasn’t that disappointed. I didn’t have a set outline for the election other than being elected. However, I do have an outline for how I want my vice presidency to go; if something like this happened I would be a lot more stressed, but not necessarily for the initial election.”
With the revoting process continuing this week, this story is developing, and updates will be provided as they become available. Commissioner of Fair Elections Practices Zoe Stankevitz has not yet responded to the comment.
