2002 Senate Elections Rocky

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Multiple problems arose during the 2002-2003 Student Government Association (SGA) senate elections. Only four out of the thirteen elections last Thursday and Friday were competitive. Six senators won uncontested and three positions remain unfilled.
During the election an electronic glitch caused voting to be suspended and all votes already cast were lost. When the election was over, the Class of 2005 was told that the wrong person had won.
According to the SGA constitution, every Middlebury College class is represented by two elected senators, but this year only one candidate ran for the position in both the classes of 2003 and 2004. Nobody ran in the Class of 2002.5.
SGA President Ginny Hunt '03 said she is not concerned about the lack of candidates for certain positions, since some members of the junior and senior classes had decided to run for the commons senate position or apply for SGA committees instead of representing their class in the senate.
Another election is scheduled for this Thursday to fill the remaining positions.
On Friday Ann Hanson, dean of student affairs, misread the election results for the Class of 2005. The e-mail announcing the results led students to believe that Andrew Carnabuci '06 had been elected class senator, when in fact Caleb Consenstein was the elected representative for the Class of 2006. A second e-mail, sent to all first-years on Sept. 29, alerted the community of the mistake but left Carnabuci disenchanted.
"I was obviously disappointed by the news and slightly astonished the wrong vote count could be certified," Carnabuci commented. "That seems like the sort of thing that happens in high school but hardly at a distinguished institution of higher learning. Regardless, if I didn't actually get the majority of the votes, I have no mandate for the office."