Georgetown University Student Association elections are never a flawless process, and there has already been one especially ugly election this year: The returns from the election for first-year GUSA representatives were not certified by the assembly until almost a month after the election was over. This week’s presidential election was yet another mess; both the Election Commission and Saxa Server made the kind of mistakes that make students question the effectiveness of GUSA. If the student association hopes to retain any measure of credibility, it is needs to run its elections professionally and get them right the first time.
By Tuesday night, Brian Morgenstern (CAS ‘05) and Steve de Man (CAS ‘04) had garnered 34.8 percent of the vote, five more percentage points than the runners-up, Rob Hutton (SFS ‘04) and Nazareth Haysbert (SFS ‘05), and nearly seven percent more than third-place Steve Palmese (MSB ‘04) and Tim Nunziata (MSB ‘04). And, according to GUSA sources, the Hutton/Haysbert and Palmese/Nunziata tickets were both disqualified for campaigning after the designated campaign period. While there are calls for a fresh election, it is best for all concerned if Morgenstern and de Man take office and try to get down to the business of running GUSA.
The best-publicized mistake in this year’s election was the failure to e-mail ballots to approximately 280 students. The student-run Saxa Server, which received a list of eligible students from the Election Commission, handled the technical aspect of voting. According to Election Commissioner Ramya Murali (SFS ‘03), the Election Commission did not use an updated master list of students, but instead sent Saxa Server a list made up of separate class lists that Murali had compiled over the course of the year. While the junior and senior class lists were updated throughout the year, the lists of first-year and sophomore students were acquired in October and therefore not completely updated. Finding a complete list of current students should not be difficult. Fortunately, it isn’t—on Tuesday morning, once the Election Commission realized the mistake, it had no problem obtaining a complete list so that the remaining students could vote.
While Saxa Server cannot be held accountable for the Election Commission’s failure to supply a complete list of eligible students, it is responsible for a deficiency in its website that allowed some students to check the election returns throughout the day. More than a few students figured out this flaw, even though there was no link to the page. The tickets disqualified for campaigning on election day could have been reacting to the real-time election returns, which would have shown that the three-way election was far from a landslide. While it may be difficult to ensure that candidates will not campaign after the official period, it is not hard to design a website that will not give real-time election returns. Once again, a simple mistake gave the whole process a black eye.
Before Morgenstern and de Man can take office, GUSA’s general assembly has to certify the election returns, something that will hopefully happen at an Assembly meeting scheduled for Tuesday. But again what should be a simple process could be complicated by the fact that about half of the 16 assembly members were involved in the election either as candidates or campaign staffers. In addition, both of the disqualified tickets plan on attending the meeting to plead their cases.
GUSA needs to figure out how to organize a dignified election, and the best course of action for starters is to finalize this year’s presidential election as soon as possible. Simply put, while the race was a close one, and the process poorly run, Morgenstern and de Man are the winners. The other two candidates were disqualified. A second election would only further discredit GUSA in the eyes of students.
