Like a certain pair of star-crossed lovers, the Election Commission acted with disastrous rashness when its three members chose late Monday night to disqualify two GUSA Presidential tickets. In disqualifying candidates Jeff Lamb (MSB `10) and Molly Breen (MSB `11) and candidates Peter Dagher (MSB `10) and Elias Ibrahim (MSB `10) for violating ResLife specifications for the placement of campaign fliers, the Commissioners not only imposed an unduly harsh punishment on the four candidates—they acted outside of their purview. GUSA’s newly created Constitutional Council, by contrast, acted laudably and responsibly by choosing to reinstate both pairs of candidates to the ballot.
While candidates’ respect for and knowledge of the rules of campaigning is important for GUSA elections, and while the candidates’ campaigns, whether knowingly or not, expressly violated campaign rules, the placement of campaign posters in dormitories is not enough to warrant the disqualification of four individuals who have made committed and sincere bids for GUSA executives. What’s more, in the hours that followed the two tickets’ disqualifications, students and student leaders revealed that several campaigns had also technically violated ResLife’s policies, demonstrating that many campaigns have found it challenging to account for all of their posters.
The Election Commission also acted outside of its authority by enforcing ResLife’s election rules, as they are only authorized by GUSA to enforce campaign rules that the Commission itself has specified to the candidates at the start of the election. GUSA leaders deserve commendation for quickly pointing this out and acting tirelessly to convince two Election Commissioners to postpone Tuesday’s elections until they could sort out the Election Commission’s mistakes. GUSA President Pat Dowd (SFS `09) and Senator Nick Troiano (COL `11) in particular deserve praise for their efforts.
Unfortunately, we cannot give the same praise for responsiveness and meticulousness to Sophia Behnia (COL `09), the head of the Election Commission, who was reportedly unresponsive to GUSA members all day Tuesday and failed to attend Tuesday night’s emergency session of the GUSA Senate, which dealt exclusively with the election debacle.
Finally, the GUSA Senate should be applauded for responding rapidly and effectively to the election crisis and for creating the Constitutional Council to oversee the clean-up of the Election Commission’s mistakes. Let’s hope round two goes more smoothly.
I wish only to clarify a few points:
This should never have been an issue in the first place. For weeks both GUSA leaders and the candidates were aware that these policies had been set, and they should have informed the Election Commission then that they did not want these rules to be enforced. The GUSA Senate needs to be in communication with the Election Commission.
Secondly, I want to correct your mistaken praise for Nick Troiano. It was the Election Commission who reached out to the GUSA leadership (not including Mr. Troiano) about stopping the election to allow for fair adjudication. It was Brian Wood, Reggie Greer and Pat Dowd who were all responsive on the issue and acted collaboratively to ensure that a solution could be reached. They should be commended, as should the Constitutional Council, whose ruling we believe is fair and the best option available. The candidates should also be commended for allowing the process to run its full course. Because of these efforts, we have been able to salvage the election and provide a just solution. But it was Mr. Troiano who consistently acted in an adversarial manner and who was frequently more interested in the GUSA Senate’s image and in shifting blame than in resolving the dispute.
Mr. Troiano in no way “acted tirelessly” to convince us to halt the election. That was an idea I had proposed in the morning to the other Election Commissioners, and which both I and Brian Wood talked about earlier in the day. Mr. Troiano never attempted to contact us Monday night, nor during the weeks leading up to the election. The first time I ever spoke with Mr. Troiano was at 5 pm on Election Day, a conversation Brian Wood set up, at which point we had already decided on our course of action. In fact, had Mr. Troiano, Mr. Wagner, or any other Senate leaders actually spoken with us on Monday night, perhaps this all could have been avoided.
You may believe whatever you wish about the original decision. I tend to believe it now allows a fair election to take place (anybody walking around campus should have noticed the Dagher/Ibrahim flyers and should realize that an election on Tuesday would have been somewhat compromised regardless of our actions). But to state that the GUSA Senate, in particular Mr. Troiano, had anything to do with the solution is far-fetched. I suppose I should not be surprised by the disinformation contained in this editorial, however, because the Voice Editorial Board has not actually spoken with all of the Election Commissioners about what happened.