Amid raised voices, flared tempers, an executive’s suspension and a resignation, the Undergraduate Senate voted to certify this year’s election results.
The Senate voted 10 to 9 to certify the whole election by secret ballot, after defeating a motion 7 to 12 to nullify the presidential race alone.
A two-thirds majority was needed to de-certify the entire election, while a three-fourths majority was required to nullify a single race.
Problems mainly surrounded the presidential race, where a Board of Elections ruling forced Nirvana Habash, a class of 2011 senator, to run as a write-in candidate. Habash still finished in third place, only 30 votes behind second place-finisher Anthony Dunham.
Debate raged around several different topics.
Voter disenfranchisement was a major concern for College of Arts and Sciences Senator Victoria Glynn.
“They’ve sat through this process once,” Glynn said of voters. “They’ve made their voices heard, maybe imperfectly, but I think that’s beside the point, because they do not want to vote again, they do not want to be told to vote again.”
The logistics of a second election worried Phil Cardarella, a senator-at-large who formerly served as President-elect Nate Bronstein’s campaign manager.
“We don’t know how we’re going to do it,” Cardarella said. “There’s no idea on how we’d actually re-hold elections. Would we have campaigning again?”
Class of 2013 Senator Brett Atanasio wondered what exactly should be fixed.
“What’s going to change, what’s going to be different, why should we bother de-certifying an election if we don’t have an answer to the problem that sank it in the first place?” Atanasio said.
The Senate heavily debated the ideas of ethics versus convenience.
“I think that if you choose to certify these elections just for convenience you are undermining the integrity of the race in general, the race in the future, the dignity of this body,” argued Class of 2010 Senator Garret Martucci.
Class of 2011 Senator Meg Miraglia, who was part of Habash’s campaign staff, felt convenience was the easy way out.
“I think that it’s irresponsible for people to stray away from doing this even if they acknowledge that things went wrong,” Miraglia said. “Who wants to win this way?”
Habash wanted the chance to run as an official candidate in a second election.
“If [Bronstein] wins or someone else wins, then I will be the first to shake their hands. But only if this is done over again,” Habash said.
Although he said his office followed election procedure for the five complaints filed, former acting BOE Chair Bikram Kohli said he feels that the election regulations were unfair and recommended the Senate to review the regulations with a BOE member present. In an e-mail he sent after the meeting, Kohli resigned his position and resumed his former job as BOE secretary.
“The election regulations do not differentiate between campaign staff and campaign supporters,” Kohli said during the meeting, citing a key discrepancy among the four complaints filed against presidential candidates.
Under Kohli’s direction, “campaign staff” is defined as those mentioned on campaign Web sites.
Amanda Merkwae also resigned her position as speaker of the Undergraduate Senate via e-mail after the votes were taken. Class of 2010 Senator Steve Dalton presided over this and last week’s meetings.
“I can no longer associate my name with an organization that chooses convenience over ethical conduct,” Merkwae wrote.
The meeting sometimes strayed into “disrespectful” territory, according to Senate Clerk Erin Waters, who does not have Senate speaking rights and spoke during the public comment section of the meeting.
“I am, for lack of a better term, disgusted with what has happened in the body today,” said the former senator. “We forget that we are students here first.”
Class of 2013 Senator Hannah Murphy echoed Waters’ sentiment.
“We are not real politicians yet,” she said. “I cannot sell my soul this early.”
You can reach this staff writer at sdazio@theeagleonline.com.
