BEC to count early ballots as absentee votes
Students in four schools and colleges had to vote again for senate candidates.
Published April 9, 2008
Following a "hostile" Missouri Students Association Senate cabinet meeting Tuesday night, the Board of Elections Commissioners have decided to count ballots that were e-mailed to the BEC before the Senate election's 6 p.m. start time as absentee ballots.
BEC Vice Chairman Justin Mohn said ballots that were submitted before 6 p.m. Monday will be used in the case of a tie in one of the four schools and colleges in which a second election is being held. Mohn formerly worked for The Maneater.
New elections were needed in the College of Arts and Science, Trulaske College of Business, College of Engineering and School of Journalism because of technical glitches with the electronic ballot used for the campus-wide election March 17-19. Seven other elections held at that time were certified by the BEC before spring break.
The BEC had planned for ballots to be sent using the Division of Information Technology's mass e-mailing program at 6 p.m. to students in the four schools and colleges; however, many ballots were delivered around 5:45 p.m., which caused some students to reply before the 6 p.m. start time.
In a previous Maneater report, BEC Chairman Geoffrey Grammer said the e-mails contained explicit rules that if someone voted before 6 p.m. Monday or broke any other voting rules, his or her ballot would not be counted. The e-mail stated, "Only Ballots sent between 6 p.m. CST April 7, 2008 and 6 p.m. CST April 9, 2008 will be accepted."
During the meeting Tuesday, a number of senators questioned whether it was fair to discount the ballots because of a technicality caused by yet another DoIT computer problem.
Senate Parliamentarian Amanda Shelton said during the meeting that discounting the votes could lead to further "disenfranchisement" of voters.
"These people voted and their votes are not being counted because of a technical error," she said. "Give these people a chance to be heard."
Academic Affairs Committee Chairwoman Phyllis Williams suggested the idea of counting the ballots as absentee votes.
"By conditionally accepting the votes you'll acknowledge that people did the right thing, but too early," she said. "Hopefully then everyone's ruffled feathers will be smoothed."
Mohn said he appreciated feedback from senators, but he and other BEC members were not expecting so many senators at the meeting.
"We really appreciated the input because obviously the absentee ballot idea was not one we came up with, but rather it was discussed at the meeting," he said. "We got quite a hostile response initially, but I don't think it was intentional."
In an interview, Mohn also said the BEC has decided to release the final vote tallies from the seven previously certified elections. In the past the BEC has released the final count for every election, including presidential elections and referendums.
In a previous Maneater report, Grammer said he didn't think the BEC should release the numbers because he didn't think it was "appropriate" for candidates to know the margins by which they won or lost. Senators at the meeting disagreed with not releasing the numbers, saying it brought up issues of MSA transparency. Mohn said the BEC discussed releasing the numbers after the meeting and "decided there's no reason not to."
Voting concludes Wednesday at 6 p.m.
