So who will GUSA appoint as the new EC members?

“This is how we were first made aware of their interpretation of the bylaws, the day of the election—instead of contacting us directly, we were criticized in the press.”

That is completely untrue. I know for a fact that, once the decision was handed down, Senators IMMEDIATELY attempted to contact the Election Commissioners, especially Sophia. A Senator wrote to Sophia, “It is critical that we talk on the phone right now. Critical. … The question of whether the election commission can enforce ResLife or University policies outside of the GUSA bylaws has been called into serious question…” She replied with a pro forma response, and then stated that she was going to bed. The Senator replied to the e-mail, citing the serious problems with her argument, but to no avail.

Freddie Moore was called. He was asleep when reached and did not even know the reason why the candidates were disqualified. He had to look at his email. He stated that the decision was final, and went to bed.

I’m not sure whether Will Dreher was contacted by other means.

2. The EC’s call into question the Senate’s concern for its own image.

False. The concern was always about GUSA’s legitimacy and the Senate’s ability to control its own elections. With such a clear violation, plus deliberate refusal to talk from Sophia, it was clear that the Senate was trying to resolve this issue in order to ensure a smooth – BUT LEGAL – election. This wasn’t GUSA stepping in to ‘fix’ a result: everyone, from students, to candidates, Senators and the newspapers agreed that the ruling was clearly in error.

The Senators attempted to get Sophia to pause the election BEFORE it started, in order to sort out the error before students were forced to vote. This would have prevented much of the confusion and allowed a calmer and more considered debate. Instead, Sophia refused and went to bed.

With such an egregious and obvious error, it is clear that GUSA wanted to rectify this as soon as possible as so as not to result in another unwarranted election fiasco on the behalf of the Election Commission. I don’t see how that’s in any way to be blamed.

But I do agree with the resignations – at least of Sophia. While Sophia has gotten her facts wrong about how many Senators resigned (8, not 12), I do find it incredibly amusing and ironic that she claims that the Senate is unrepresentative. Coming from a former unelected head of SAC, a body that is completely unrepresentative.

If Dowd is appointing the new EC, let’s hope he has the foresight to appoint at least one woman on the board instead of three more men like he did with the CC.

The Lizard Man wants in on the action, if you see him around tonight, write him in..

BS is just completely wrong. Point Blank.

1. Personally, I answered any possible questions which were brought forth to me on the night before the election. Now, there were two calls. One was from Reggie and Nick and the other was from an unknown caller who somehow got my number and refused to divulge his name. When I talked to Reggie and Nick, which was after 11pm that night, IT WAS THEN that they told me about the interpretation of the by-laws. I had conveyed to them that at that point, Erika had already sent the email with the link to the voting website. By the time Reggie and Nick and reached me….it was TOO LATE.
Now, lets talk about the second anonymous phone call. When we originally spoke I was walking back from the library. You asked me then, and I tried my best to oblige even though I didnt know who you were, to give you the specifics of their violations. I told you then that I had not seen them, but that in my email exchanges with Will and Sophia, I had saved the number and location of said violations. It was then that you began to become unreasonable. In response, I hung up the phone and refused to answer anymore of your phone calls.

If you really stood behind your convictions”BS” you would have signed in with your real name. Instead you choose the route of a coward, signing in under what you believe to be a clever alias and making yourself look like a fool.

All this talk of ‘access to benefits’ reminds me that Sophia is the SAC chair. Interesting.

I would just like to make it known that Fred Moore and Will Dreher were extremely helpful and cooperative this afternoon as we worked together to get the election up and running, and that I am very appreciative for their hard work. The now settled issue of disqualifications aside, Will and Fred deserve some serious credit for their continued commitment to running a smooth election despite the intense criticism that they have received over the past few days. Because of their cooperative and friendly disposition, it has been a pleasure working with them to find a suitable solution to the situation at hand.

- Pat Dowd (SFS ‘09), GUSA President

To BS:

“The EC’s call into question the Senate’s concern for its own image.

False. The concern was always about GUSA’s legitimacy and the Senate’s ability to control its own elections.”

A direct quote from the email sent to Sophia by Matt Wagner and which has been making the rounds recently:

“In order to avoid a very very damaging implosion of GUSA legitimacy, authority, and reliability, we have to do this before the election happens.”

That sounds a lot like concern for image to me. There was nothing in that email about an argument based on the bylaws, which it appears was not given to the Commission until the next day. As more and more facts leak out about this it is becoming more and more clear that the Commission was not given all the info it needed to make this decision…doesn’t that mean the senate didn’t tell them all the info they needed? Especially after the commission explicitly states that this was the case? Traiano/Wagner have some ’splainin to do…

Troiano/Wagner, or at least Wagner, will explain all you want.

My e-mail address is mjwagner@gmail.com, and if you really do want an explanation, I would be more than happy to oblige in person. I also sign all of my posts on the Voice and the Hoya’s website with my own name, FYI, so that not only can I be held as much as possible to my word but also so that people can know both what I think and that it is me thinking it.

Again, I will gladly meet with anyone who wants to talk about this more. Or, you could always come to a Senate meeting (open to the public at 9:30PM wednesdays on the first floor of healy) and I will talk to you afterwards. You may find other senators willing to do the same.

Best-
Matt Wagner
GUSA Senator, McCarthy 6-8
Chair, GUSA Senate Finance and Appropriations Committee

Haha–nice try. Yes, you explain in private while slamming the EC in public. And the EC gets roasted over and over because you and your friend Troiano are on the phone all day with the Hoya and Voice editors.

Why don’t you explain PUBLICLY why Dreher never got a phone call Monday night. Did you even have his phone number? Why wasn’t this bylaw issue brought up before MONDAY NIGHT!? Explain HOW you can take credit for “pausing” the election when the EC says they never got a phone call frmo you/Traiano until 5 pm? You guys are both jokes–all you do is try to position yourselves so that you don’t get blamed and everybody else does.

I just can’t believe the senate ran an election and entirely failed to even tell the Commission what the rules were they wanted them run by. As nearly all the candidates and most commenters have said, the EC made a reasonable rule and y’all didn’t react until Tuesday morning. If that means y’all saved the election, then I wonder what would be “destroying” the election.

“I just can’t believe the senate ran an election and entirely failed to even tell the Commission what the rules were they wanted them run by.”

Have you read the elections by-laws rules? It’s about a page, so it shouldn’t be too strenuous.

Aside from first listing the restrictions, it has an explicit clause saying no other restrictions can be made. Now, for most people, that would be pretty simple.

However, there was another regulation – specifically listed under the “Election Commission” header – which states: “The Election Commission must run the Senate and Presidential elections according to the election by-laws established by the Senate. The Election Commission does not have the power to make any new rules for election or modify election regulation.”

So, I’m sorry, but it’s not the Senate’s fault.

As for not getting a phone call, I know there were emails sent within an hour of the disqualifications. I don’t think Dreher and Moore deserve as much as the blame as Sophia, who refused to listen to the Senate.

Was it a concern for image? Image based on the fact that the EC was violating very clear by-laws (which was explained in conversation and emails – you can check with Wagner or Sophia) and that this would inevitably come down as GUSA’s problem. And indeed, that seems to be how it’s played out since then, with many people complaining about GUSA’s illegitimacy.

Here’s a question – why didn’t the EC ever contact the Senate or President? They were in fact unsure of whether they had the power to disqualify candidates, and so instead emailed Erika Cohen-Derr who stated that it was not up to her. At that point, don’t you think maybe shooting an email to the Senate to clarify might have been important? Especially when Sophia had misinterpreted the by-laws in the earlier Senate election and had to be corrected?

I take it, BS–Redux, that you aren’t going to take me up on my offer to have this all explained.

I understand if you want to have a justification for continuing to insist (based on, at very best, incomplete information) that I have some motives, whatever those may be, aside from making sure a fair election takes place in accordance with the rules.

But the offer still stands, and if you want (though my official job description has nothing to do with this election), I will meet with you publicly for sure. I will meet with you after our Senate meeting, as I said, and you can bring anybody you like to hear the conversation. Record it, invite newspapers, whatever you want. We don’t have to do it at/after a Senate meeting either, pick a place and as long as I don’t have a conflict, I will meet you and talk with whomever you want.

Public enough offer? I don’t see how it can be more so.

best,
Matt

Also, BS Redux, I would like to again point out that I post my comments in my own name and own up to my words. You should consider the idea, if you do intend to claim your words as your own.

um my name is clearly in response to bs. who is that guy?

To clear things up from my perspective:

I got a phone call at near midnight on Monday night from Reggie who explained the situation. Within 3 minutes, I concluded, and he agreed, that the action of the Commission was against the bylaws. Up until midnight, I was completely unaware the Commission even intended to enforce regulations outside the bylaws (they never copied us on emails to Candidates). It may be a legitimate criticism that I should have known, and I accept that. But that’s about all I will accept, because Matt and I and many others worked very hard since Monday evening when this issue arose to make sure the election happened that students could have faith in and at the earliest time possible, which happened successfully today.

We tried to get the election stopped before the ballots went out Monday night. (From the time stamp of Pat’s email, he had been trying for several hours before I even found out). I spoke to Fred on the phone (had to be around 1am), who told me the decision stands regardless of our objection. Sophia gave the same response in an email and refused to speak by phone, resolving to go to sleep instead. I believe Will was not contacted because we did not have his number.

Reggie and I, as a last resort, sent a plea to Student Programs asking that it delay the election until we could better communicate with the Election Commission. That was at 2:49 AM. We had no other recourse so we also went to sleep. The next morning we woke up to see the ballot already in our inbox, as it was scheduled to be sent from the night before. Fred is correct in stating most, if not all, of our attempts to save the election before it was started were too late.

The entire next day was spent trying to get the election suspended, and devising a plan of action if such a suspension took place (i.e. how to get a Constitutional Council in place THAT night -which wound up happening). The breakthrough came when I talked to Brian Wood near 4pm and he informed me that Will was willing to stop the elections IF it could be demonstrated that the majority of the Senate would not certify the results under the current process. So I sent an email to the Senate asking this hypothetical questions, and it was apparent certification would not happen.

When I spoke with Will an hour later I explained this and also explained why I thought the Commission’s decision was against the bylaws. I asked him to meet me at as soon as possible in Student Programs before the staff left, which he did. I asked Matt and Reggie to meet me there, and Will asked Fred. We sat down in the office, and that was when the final decision was made to stop the election. From there, we emailed the Senate to call a special session for the purpose of setting up the Constitutional Council. You know the rest.

My phone is 973-229-1273, and I would be willing to talk to anyone about this.

Nick:

These things that you did after the fact are all good and well I suppose, but where were you guys PRIOR to the controversy? It seems that there was a lack of communication on the Senates part prior to their decision. You guys never communicated with them when they were originally dealt the situation, you guys never informed them they were stepping outside their purview issuing warnings of disqualification. You purport yourself as the savior of this election, but from my standpoint if you had actually communicated with the election commission prior to all of this you wouldn’t have needed to save any election in the first place. Seems like the senate is trying to pat themselves on the back but their lack of communication to the EC and lack of guidance caused the whole mess in the first place.

I am certain had we known, we would have said something. I personally was never aware of the warnings. But as I wrote above: “It may be a legitimate criticism that I should have known, and I accept that.”

In fact, during the confirmation of two new Election Commissioners I believe I was the only Senator to ask a question, and it had something to do with making sure they followed what was written in the bylaws (as a candidate in the Fall, Sophia attempted to disallow the use of the internet in campaigning, and a repeat of that concerned me).

In any case, our assumption, and I guess it was a wrong one, was that the EC would follow what the bylaws made so clear: don’t enforce any other rules. As Brian Wood said, the bylaws could not have possibly made it clearer.

As many have pointed out, much of this stems to the fact of poor continuity between Election Commissions – they need to meet with each other to establish best practices. And I think the Senate has a role to fill in making sure the oversight is there, and the Commissioners know they should approach us with any questions they have.

Nick’s timeline (at least on Tuesday, I’m not sure about Monday night) is absolutely correct.

I think the biggest mistake here was on both sides, the failure to communicate prior to and during Monday night. As I have said before, the problem was created before Monday night, because even if I had learned of the bylaw issue and reinstated the candidates for Tuesday, that would still mean certain candidates had not flyered because they were told not to.

In any case, as we’ve already said, the poor communication is as much our fault as anyone else’s. In the future the Election Commission needs to have a sit-down meeting with GUSA leaders prior to the campaign period and regular updates during the campaign/election. It’s their election, and I can guarantee that nobody on the Commission wanted to run it in any way other than the way they desire.

[...] Commissions decision, the election was suspended, complaints were filed, Election Commissioners resigned, and the disqualified candidates were ultimately [...]