At 3:30 a.m. this morning, the lounge in Wren Hall resembled West Palm Beach, FL, as student government leaders gathered for an emergency meeting on whether constitutional revisions and amendment referendum questions will remain on today's ballot. Controversy arose after a mass e-mail was sent out to the student body mistakenly purporting to have been written by members of the Elections Board (ELBO). The body attempted to remove the constitutional questions because the e-mail, which encouraged students to vote and explained the issues at hand, would not allow for a fair election.
The Tufts Community Union Judiciary (TCUJ) ordered ELBO to go ahead with the vote but not to count the results until a formal hearing can be held.
The e-mail was sent out by a computer programmer after approval from Dean of Students Bruce Reitman. Though it was written by members of the constitutional reform committee, an oversight listed the sender as "TheElectionBoard@tufts.edu". While the attribution of the e-mail to ELBO was a mistake, members of the body still say that it biased the election and could skew votes.
"ELBO considers the email to be deceitful, biased, and a possible serious violation of Tufts University policy," the body wrote in its official decision. "Most importantly, ELBO considers the e-mail detrimental to the fairness of the election process."
Senate Trustee Representative Jesse Levey, who was part of a constitutional reform effort last year that never materialized, became suspect when he saw the e-mail, and filed a complaint with ELBO. "It seemed to be coming from someone who was in support of the constitution,"
he said. ELBO met around 9:30 p.m. to discuss Levey's complaint, and decided that it could not run a fair election on the constitutional questions today, subsequently removing them from the ballot. The body had the authority to do so based on Article IV, Section A of the Senate constitution, which gives ELBO the responsibility of insuring fair elections.
"We agreed that certain parts of the e-mail that was sent out could have been perceived as not impartial," ELBO chair Shane Mason said. "We decided that the damage done by the e-mail is not something that can be easily overturned."
The ballot questions at issue were a revised version of the TCU constitution and two amendments that would give voting rights to culture representatives and add acceptance of self-identity to the nondiscrimination policy in the constitution.
The body met again after it was revealed that the e-mail had come from the Dean of Students Office, but ELBO reached the same conclusion. Outgoing Senate President Dave Moon then filed a complaint with the TCUJ, saying that ELBO had overstepped its authority in choosing to remove the questions from the ballot.
The TCUJ held an emergency meeting and, after nearly an hour of debate, mandated that the questions remain on the ballot, but not be counted or disclosed until a formal meeting can be held. For that to happen, though, Reitman will have to extend the terms of the current TCUJ members, as they are schedule to end with today's election.
TCUJ members Mike Ferenczy and Alison Clarke recused themselves from voting on the issue because of conflicts of interest with their involvement in the drafting of the new constitution and the campaign for its passage.
The contents of the e-mail were taken directly from posters distributed around campus authored by constitutional reform committee chair Ben Lee. At a meeting earlier this year, Reitman offered to send out an e-mail to students informing them about the proposed changes to the TCU constitution, and Lee provided him with the information for yesterday's e-mail.
Though ELBO approved placing the posters at the polls, it objected when the contents of the e-mail attributed to the body.
"We're supposed to be a sovereign non-political body," ELBO chair Shane Mason said. "It's just not something we would have sent out."
Reitman and a computer programmer met around 11 p.m. last night to send out a correction, but it was not sent due to a power outage that crashed Tufts' e-mail servers. It is expected that the e-mails will be re-sent early this morning.
Last night's developments came as no surprise to culture representative Angel Vail, as the culture reps voting amendment has proved divisive. According to Vail, many students close to the proceedings are strongly opposed to giving culture reps the vote.
"It doesn't surprise me," she said. "So many people have been trying to make sure that this does not happen and this plays in their favor."
While acknowledging the intense politics surrounding the vote on culture reps, ELBO Treasurer Valentino Caruso denied there was any partisanship in ELBO's decision. "When it comes down to it we really don't care," he said. "We're concerned with following the constitution."
