Breaking News Hunt Elected SGA President, LaBolt Chosen to Lead Community Council

Author: Claire Bourne

Friday, April 19, 8:15 p.m. -- Ginny Hunt ’03 has been elected Student Government Association (SGA) president for the 2002-2003 school year, garnering 67 percent of the vote. Ben LaBolt ’03 prevailed in the hotly contested race for Student Co-chair of Community Council (SCCOCC).

Neil Onsdorff ’03, Hunt’s opponent, received 27 percent of the vote, while 6 percent of voters abstained. SCCOCC candidate Fahim Ahmed ’03 obtained 37 percent of voter support with 11 percent of voters abstaining.

According to an all-student e-mail from Chair of the Elections Council Sara Schuman ’02, 1,328 students, approximately 60 percent of the student body, cast votes in yesterday and today’s election.

The election concluded at 5 p.m. this evening following an emergency meeting of the SGA Senate last night to establish protocol to govern the operation of computerized voting stations. The meeting was called after a candidate’s staff members set up three laptop computers near the bussing station in Proctor Hall yesterday evening. The students were promptly asked by the Elections Committee to take down the voting station.

At the time, there was no official language governing the use of electronic voting stations. Therefore, the candidate did not violate campaigning regulations. Schuman said she gave the staff members, who wore endorsement stickers for the candidate on their shirts, five minutes to dismantle the station.

“It was the decision of the Elections Council that it would be unfair to set up those computers,” said Schuman. The presence of campaign material so close to a voting station, she continued, might “put pressure on voters.”

The new language, endorsed by the SGA at midnight last night, permitted candidates to set up computerized voting stations but required such stations to be manned by members of the Elections Council “in order to maintain neutrality.” The language also allowed individuals the right to campaign “within any proximity” of the voting stations as long as voter privacy was maintained.

Two computers, overseen by Schuman, were available for student voting in Proctor during election hours today.

Comprehensive coverage of the election and related topics will be available in next Wednesday’s issue of The Middlebury Campus.