BEC decertifies election, throws out ‘absentee’ votes
Arts and Science senators will vote to break a tie in the college.
April 11, 2008
The MSA Board of Elections Commissioners has decided to decertify the results of the latest Senate election that concluded Wednesday night, BEC members stated in an e-mail Friday afternoon.
The e-mail, sent at 1:03 p.m., said the BEC will decertify the “previously certified elections” that took place in four colleges and schools this week, and “votes that were cast prior to 6 p.m. Monday night are going to be considered ineligible and void.”
Missouri Students Association Senate elections were held in the College of Arts and Science, Trulaske College of Business, College of Engineering and School of Journalism this week because of technical problems with the electronic ballots used in campus wide elections March 17-19. The latest elections were not free from problems, however. Ballots were sent to students in the four colleges using the Division of Information Technology’s mass e-mailing program. The BEC asked for the ballots to be sent at the 6 p.m. start time of the election, but they were e-mailed around 5:45 p.m., which resulted in about 25 students casting ballots before 6 p.m. Following a discussion Tuesday night with Senate cabinet members, the BEC decided to use the early votes as absentee ballots, to be used in the case of a tie. The absentee ballots were used to break a tie in the College of Arts and Science election, but not in the other three elections.
Some senators, including Senate Speaker Jonathan Mays, have taken issue with how the ballots were used because they were under the impression the ballots would be used if the elections were close enough to change the outcome of the election. In a previous Maneater report, Mays said elections were very close in two other schools in addition to the tie within the College of Arts and Science. Senate Parliamentarian Amanda Shelton and Senator Marissa Sharkey said in a previous report that they are drafting a petition to file with the Student Court to determine whether the election was handled properly.
Mays and members of the BEC met informally with the Student Court Thursday night to talk about the various problems with the elections. Outgoing Chief Justice Drew Weber said he invited the two to talk about the latest problems and though the court didn’t issue any official stance because no petition had been filed and there wasn’t a quorum of justices, Weber personally advised the BEC to either count all of the absentee votes or none of them.
Because of the tie within the College of Arts and Science, the e-mail from the BEC states that a run-off election will occur within the next week. According to BEC election rules, in the case of a run-off, the candidates who have secured a seat in next year’s Senate will vote to break the tie.
BEC Chairman Geoffrey Grammer said in a separate e-mail that the BEC will have no further comment on the issue.
Mays said in an e-mail he is unsure what his next course of action would be.
“On Monday, those votes were ineligible,” he said. “On Wednesday, they were eligible. On Thursday, they affected the announced election results. And on Friday, they're ineligible again. I don’t know what to do with that.”
Mays said, however, he has maintained a steady position throughout the past four weeks regarding how the elections should be handled.
“I believe we should engage as many candidates and voters as possible while maintaining a fair election,” he said. “I felt that way about the registration process, the first election and this one, too.”
More April 11, 2008 News Stories
- BEC decertifies election, throws out ‘absentee’ votes — Arts and Science senators will vote to break a tie in the college.
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