After two major presidential election controversies in the past three years, the Tufts Community Union Judiciary (TCUJ) and the Elections Board (ELBO) are struggling to resolve the latest confusion and prevent similar problems from occurring in the future.
The TCUJ will hold a hearing on Monday to decide whether ELBO should have included the TCU constitutional referendum and two constitutional amendments on the ballot. The ELBO voted to remove the questions after an e-mail informing to students describing the proposed changes was mistakenly attributed to the Elections Board. The TCUJ forced ELBO to include the questions on the ballot, but not to count the votes until a formal hearing on the issue could be held.
The date of another hearing, to address the allegations of senior Emily Stewart that election tampering took place at the Dewick poling station, is also undetermined.
"There will be a formal hearing unless she decides to withdraw [her complaint]. We haven't really decided on a procedure," ELBO member Adam Mueller said.
According to Stewart, poll workers were not checking Tufts IDs and students slipped two ballots in the ballot box when poll workers were not watching.
Many have pointed to ELBO's vague by-laws and ambiguous wording about the responsibilities of the body in the TCU constitution as hindering a fair outcome to TCU elections. Yesterday, during the various election controversies, ELBO was forced to make on-the-fly decisions without the benefit of clear contingency plans or precedent.
Last night, because there was no set procedure, ELBO spent two and a half hours debating whether to count the presidential votes. "We had to ensure fairness. We had to hear the complaint because it was formally filed, but we had to set some type of standard," Mueller said.
After the voter fraud allegations, ELBO decided that the difference between the two candidates had to exceed eight percent for the election to be considered valid. Two years ago, ELBO was forced to hold a revote on the presidential election between Larry Harris and Vivek Ramgopal after reports of voter fraud. In 1999, poll workers did not show up for their scheduled shifts, and the lack of supervision allegedly allowed some students to vote multiple times.
Article IV of the TCU constitution states that is the responsibility of ELBO is to "insure fair elections" and "be the arbiter of any disputes concerning an election." But ELBO bylaws do not stipulate how disputes should be resolved or hearings on complaints conducted.
"We haven't officially discussed changing our bylaws, but I think some clarification is certainly warranted," Mueller said. "The bylaws need to be looked at."
Student government leaders, meanwhile, have been frustrated by the controversy that has overshadowed the presidential election.
"I think the whole process was frustrating. ELBO needs to prepare itself for things like this happening," presidential candidate Michele Shelton said.
Though Shelton said that ELBO handled the situation as best it could, she says that proper procedure for the body should be more clearly delineated. "They should have contingencies in place before the election," Shelton said, referring to the "eight-percent" decision.
"I'm very happy they brought in a third party - Ed Cabellon, the assistant director of programming activities - that was a good idea," she said.
If the TCUJ decides not to count the votes on the constitution question, a new election will have to be held in the fall, and many are concerned that students would not turn out to vote.
But according to Senator Ben Lee, chair of the constitutional reform committee, disagreement over the constitution vote was unnecessary. "I think it's ridiculous that we've spent so much time to get this out. I am all for using the results that were attained yesterday," he said. "I don't feel like [the e-mail] jeopardized the election whatsoever." Another issue that may be addressed in discussions of ELBO reforms is the use of hired poll workers in running elections. These students have complete control of the ballots at their various polling stations.
"We didn't actually train [poll workers]," Mueller said. "When they signed up, they signed a contract which outlined their responsibilities and a code."
This code ordered poll workers to check students' bursar labels, to mark the labels to show they have voted, to refer to any printed information for the voters, and not to provide any personal opinions.
Even after complaints over this election have been resolved, the controversy could still diminish student trust in their government. "I think that next year people will definitely have an eye on the Senate, especially towards the beginning - especially with the freshman election- to make sure that Tufts was not in Florida, as it was this year," Shelton said.
