Election Board Sets Processes

Despite concerns over the timing of the last-minute disqualification of a party, student council members who guided the Columbia College Student Council's new Elections Board through its first challenge last week said they are satisfied with its performance and potential.

"I'm fully confident in their ability to make the elections exciting and make impartial judgments," said Beth Katz, CC '06 and senior class vice president, who co-chaired the Election Board during its creation over the past few months.

The Elections Board was created last May to replace the similar Committee on Elections, Nominations, and Appointments. The body oversees elections and monitors candidates and parties for rule violations during the campaigning and election process.

Last week's first-year student council election served as a trial run for the new organization. While current CCSC members and the newly appointed members of the Elections Board said they were pleased with the organization's performance, the process did not go entirely smoothly.

After midnight on the morning of the election, the Board discovered a pile of extra flyers for the Hand Party in John Jay lobby, a violation during the moratorium on campaigning imposed prior to the start of voting. The Board disqualified the party at 3 a.m., but because the Hand Party decided to appeal the decision minutes before electronic voting started, their name was left on the ballot. They ultimately received 71 votes, tying for second before rescinding their appeal in the afternoon.
Rachael McMillan, CC '09 and a member of the C Party, which tied for second, said she was upset with the response of the Elections Board to the appeal.

"It's inexcusable to not tell the voters that the Hand Party was in jeopardy," she said. "The votes were pretty much thrown out."

But members of the Board said removing a party from the ballot before their appeal could be considered would have been less fair to all parties.

"We didn't think it was fair to take a candidate off the ballot who still has a pending appeal," said Jonathan Hunt-Glassman, CC '06 and a member of the Elections Board.

"The only alternative would have been to have a re-vote after the fact, and that would have disenfranchised everyone who voted on the correct day," said Elections Board member Subash Iyer, CC '07, who said previous re-votes have yielded "much lower" turnout due to confusion and the difficulty of publicizing a second election day.

CCSC President Michelle Oh stood by the board's decision. "When candidates stick to the rules, these issues don't happen­-that's the bottom line," she said. "But it was a fair election, and I'm very happy with how things went overall."

With the first-year election behind them, the Elections Board has shifted its focus to the spring elections. Katz and her co-chair Jen Schnidman, CC '06, have stepped down as co-chairs, and a new chair will be chosen within the next several weeks.

Hunt-Glassman stressed that the board is keeping records of all its decision-making procedures so future boards will have points of reference. He called the shift to campus-wide electronic voting "a goal and a major priority for the spring."

He said the board would soon begin working to expand election rules for specific circumstances "so that the rules can be applied consistently and this body doesn't have to keep making decisions on a case-by-case basis."