Tempers Flare as SGA Establishes Computer Voting Protocol

Author: Claire Bourne

Tensions ran high at a Student Government Association (SGA) emergency meeting last Thursday night as senators and presidential cabinet members struggled to come to a consensus on protocol to govern the operation of computerized voting stations in Thursday and Friday's elections for SGA president and student co-chair of Community Council.

The 11 p.m. meeting, called by current SGA President Brian Elworthy '02.5 and Student Co-chair of Community Council Erica Rosenthal '02, followed a 7:15 p.m. gathering of eight senators to discuss the same issue. Senior Senator Kevin King convened the first meeting after students working for presidential candidate Neil Onsdorff '03 set up three laptop computers near the bussing station in Proctor Hall during dinner hours Thursday.

Chair of the Elections Council Sara Schuman '02 said she gave the staff members, who wore stickers endorsing Onsdorff 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."

A resolution passed in 1998-99, when voting took place on paper ballots at designated locations, stated that no campaigning could take place within 500 feet of these polling stations, Schuman explained, adding that the language had been amended "to include computers." Whether Onsdorff violated campaign regulations "was not black or white, but remains questionable," she continued.

King said he wanted to draft language outlining fair use of electronic voting stations as soon as possible. The group of eight senators passed a resolution that King presented to Elworthy and Rosenthal by 8 p.m.

Elworthy and Rosenthal called King's resolution "illegitimate" in an e-mail to SGA senators and cabinet members announcing the 11 p.m. meeting. They said they were "both extremely offended that the chair of [Thursday's] meeting sought fit to circumvent us and our Cabinet members."

"A necessary quorum to hold a meeting was not reached," Elworthy and Rosenthal wrote. According to the SGA Constitution, because the senate is comprised of 17 voting members, a quorum would consist of at least nine voting members, not eight, they continued.

Policy also states that "every possible effort to contact all members of the SGA shall be made" when calling an emergency meeting. "We did not receive voice mails informing us of the meeting, and the time the e-mail was sent was 7:14 p.m. One minute notice via e-mail does not constitute every possible effort," Elworthy and Rosenthal asserted in their e-mail.

Elworthy and Rosenthal drafted a new resolution for the later meeting, which was ultimately endorsed by the Senate at midnight. The new language permitted candidates to set up computerized voting stations but required that such stations 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 Friday.

Conversation during the second emergency meeting, however, focused primarily on the "illegitimacy" of King's resolution and broke down several times into disorder. King and Elworthy sparred across the conference table, leaving few other senators the chance to call the resolution to a vote.

At one point during the meeting, Junior Senator Simon Isaacs called King's refusal to amend the speaker's list "ridiculous."

Cook Commons Senator Jacob Carney '04 asserted, "Let's cut the crap and vote on this."

Schuman called the campaigning guidelines as outlined in the SGA Constitution "admittedly insufficient" and said they pertained "almost entirely to campaign finance." However, she affirmed, "If the discretion of the Elections Council is not respected, then emergency meetings of the Senate will be called every time anything in the gray area occurs."