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Student Court election investigation requested

The court will convene after spring break.

By Anna Koeppel and Jenna Youngs
March 20, 2008

Missouri Students Association Senate Speaker Jonathan Mays, MSA President Jim Kelley and 33 other students submitted a petition to the Student Court Thursday afternoon requesting further investigation of this week's Senate election. The petition states that an unknown number of students were unable to vote in the elections due to technical difficulties. It further states that because a new ballot was released at 9:22 p.m. Monday, the participation of 203 students who voted using the first ballot but not the second, was not accounted for. Further, the petition questions the length of the election; the election with the new ballots ended at 6 p.m. Wednesday, only about 45 hours after they were released. MSA bylaw chapter 5.02 requires that elections last 48 hours.

The petition signers include student leaders from MSA and other organizations, Senate candidates and concerned students, whom Mays called "a broad coalition."

Board of Elections Commissioners Geoffrey Grammer said it's Mays' right to submit the petition, but he is confident that all students were given the opportunity to vote.

"The people who voted in the first election had the right to re-vote," Grammer said.

Grammer said students who voted before 9:22 p.m. Monday could cast another ballot online until 6 p.m. Wednesday or a paper or e-mail ballot until 9 p.m. Wednesday.

"We did everything we could to get people to vote, and an equal chance to vote, under the circumstances," he said.

Mays said he filed the petition because MSA needs to collect more information about the "scale and severity" of the problems. He said until an investigation is carried out, he doesn't have enough information to have an informed opinion about what to do next.

Student Court Chief Justice Drew Weber said the court would convene either Monday or Tuesday following spring break to investigate the allegations. Weber said the petition is not a normal case that the court would consider because it's a petition for an investigation. He said the court would gather evidence and determine what course of action MSA should take. Some possibilities include deciding the election was valid, recommending ways to avoid this situation in the future or declaring the election invalid and requiring a new election.

Mays said MSA is entering "uncharted territory that's loosely defined by bylaws" about how to resolve the errors with the election. He said the MSA bylaws are vague about what to do if there is a problem with an election.

"What happened between (the Division of Information Technology) and the registrar — can we fix it?" Mays said. "How long will it take? We need to engage everyone if we're going to get a good solution in this."

The last time an election was declared invalid was in spring 2003, when a special election was held to determine the fate of Proposition Omega, a referendum to restructure the Senate. That referendum passed but was declared invalid after the Student Court decided it had been held too close to the end of the spring semester. A referendum to restructure Senate failed to pass again until fall 2005.

Mays said the Senate will hold Senator training for all candidates at 6:30 p.m. on April 1, since winners will not be known at that point.

The full text of the petition is available here.