Universitywide student elections could be postponed today, a day after voting began, because system glitches didn’t permit some students to vote and others to vote in races outside their representation.
Unapproved language that appeared on referendum questions also has been contested by an ASMSU elections committee.
After a two-hour deliberation, ASMSU’s All University Elections Committee unanimously recommended on Tuesday evening the elections be postponed for a week. That decision ultimately falls in the lap of Lee June, vice president for student affairs, who said he’ll make a decision today.
The elections committee declared ASMSU’s representative elections and $13 tax referendum void on the universitywide ballot due to online voting glitches.
The other referenda on the ballot, The State News $1 tax increase and the University Apartments’ Council of Residents $1.50 tax increase were not affected.
Both MSU’s undergraduate student government’s Academic and Student assemblies representative election results were affected by technical problems in the computer voting process designed by the Computer Center.
The number of Academic Assembly candidates were determined by college population instead of the mandated two seats per college.
Students also were allowed to vote for representatives in colleges they were not enrolled in, causing both assembly results to be skewed. ASMSU representatives reported some students couldn’t log onto the voting system for unknown reasons.
Election committee members also said the wording on ASMSU constitutional changes were not approved by them, voiding that area of the ballot. One area where election committee officials say wording was not approved was in the measure to renew the $13 per semester ASMSU tax. If the tax is not renewed in this election, the undergraduate student government will not be able to collect tax money next fall.
The undergraduate student government collects more than $1 million in student taxes during the academic year.
“In our mind there were very few questions about what was fair and what needed to be done,” said Julie Burtch, a social relations junior and one of five students who make up the elections committee.
“Postponing the elections for a week should give the (elections committee) time to approve referenda language and give the Computer Center time to fix their problems. It’s suppose to be a campuswide vote, and when students can’t vote, that’s a problem.”
Computer Center director Lewis Greenberg said Tuesday night he didn’t think the center would have to change the election computer program.
“We set it up exactly the way we were told to set it up,” he said. “Once the action starts, in my mind, that’s the way the ballot is. There was plenty of time to check it, and we got no negatives. I think our rules have been once it’s up and running, that’s the way it is. Once people have been voting, it’s not fair to change it.”
Academic Assembly James Madison College Rep. Jared English said he tried to vote on three different computers Tuesday morning before he realized something was wrong.
“At first I was shocked, and thought I did something wrong,” said English, who is running for his current seat. “I think it is ridiculous I couldn’t vote for myself.”
ASMSU spent about $350 per day on election advertisements in The State News for this week. The group also spent money on tax referendum ads earlier.
Academic Assembly James Madison College Rep. Adam Raezler, motioned to postpone and declare the elections results void at Academic Assembly’s meeting Tuesday night. The assembly voted to recommend the postponement.
Raezler said, if he is re-elected, he wants to review the amount of power the election committee has.
“We want to give students a fair chance,” Raezler said, explaining ASMSU officials should design a new Web site with the Computer Center and test it before the elections reopen.”
Academic Assembly College of Natural Science Rep. Josh Boehme said canceling ASMSU’s referenda voting was not necessary, but canceling the representative elections was.
“I think there’s no way we can trust the validity of the elections,” Boehme said.
Staff writer Chad Previch contributed to this report.
Alison Barker can be reached at barkera6@msu.edu.
