The numbers of votes cast in the recent student government elections went unpublished and were wiped off of the electronic voting program three days after the elections took place.
To publish or not to publish?
Student Association (S.A.) president Alex Monahan and vice president Mallory Wood made the executive decision to not publish the 2008 student government election results, they say. Last year was the first and only year since Monahan has been on the SA that the numbers were published, he says.
“The only reason they were published last year is because it was so close,” Wood says. “Alex won by roughly 60 votes and I won by roughly 20 votes.”
If the race were close like last year’s was, then having those numbers would have been important, Wood says.
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The "transfer of power" at the S.A.'s final meeting of the year. (Photo by Abby Robitaille) |
Kelley Boyden, a junior at St. Michael’s, thinks students should have been given the opportunity to see the results if they wanted to, but does not feel it is necessary, she says.
“I don’t see the importance of seeing the numbers unless there was a huge controversy over it,” she says.
Monahan and Wood are the only two people who saw votes this year, Monahan says.
“Other than complaints from the Echo and the Defender, there have been none about the fact that the numbers aren’t available,” Wood says.
“Nobody e-mailed our S.A. account demanding that we release the numbers either,” she adds.
Boyden has mixed feelings about the issue.
“I feel that it was good that the numbers weren’t published, especially since it wasn’t a close vote, because it would be quite embarrassing to the parties that lost, but at the same time they have to be consistent,” Boyden says. “They can’t publish it one year and then not publish it another year.”
Smooth voting
The S.A. used a new electronic voting system for this year’s student government elections. In the past, the S.A. rented Web space for thousands of dollars for a one-time use program, Wood says.
This year, the S.A. purchased its own program, and they had a professional Web designer design it for them, Monahan says.
“It’s a very good system where if there were any discrepancies we can actually go in and see when your ID number voted, from which computer it voted on, the time, the date, everything, so we know which ID numbers have voted and have not voted,” Wood says.
Counting the votes by hand is no longer necessary because the new program is safe, she says. While there is no paper trail anymore, there is an electronic record for verification, Wood says.
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Students voting in the S.A. elections at electronic voting stations in Alliot on April 2. (Photo by Abby Robitaille) |
“Students were able to quickly and easily vote from their rooms, or from the voting booth in Alliot,” Wood says. “It was a nice design. You could see pictures of the candidates in case you weren’t sure of who somebody was. I think it was easy to use, we didn’t hear any complaints.”
There were no problems with the new system, Monahan says. It ran smoothly.
Sticking by it
A bylaw was put into the S.A. constitution last year that stated the polling numbers should be released, Monahan says. The bylaw was added because if there were close elections in the future, people would be able to see the results, Wood says.
Monahan has the executive privilege over the bylaws, and is allowed to disregard decisions like that, Wood says.
“He doesn’t make decisions like that without talking to other people,” she says. “Technically he could, but Alex wouldn’t do that; that’s just the person he is. So he and I had a very long discussion the night of the election and we made the decision together.”
Withholding the numbers does not take away from the whole experience, both Monahan and Wood say.
Although it doesn’t take away from the experience, it may not be fully realistic, junior Claire Kearney says.
“In the real world they would release the numbers and those people would just have to deal with it, so maybe St. Mike's should just stop sheltering its college students and give them a harsh cold slap of reality,” she says.
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The 2007-2008 S.A. executive board at the final meeting of the year. (Photo by Abby Robitaille) |
When students decide to run for the elections they are already putting themselves into a position of scrutiny, and no student deserves to feel shame, Wood says.
“I think that when you are putting yourself out there, and I can speak from experience, for two weeks you are campaigning on this campus,” Wood says. “Your face is plastered everywhere. Everybody automatically knows who you are even though you don’t know who they are, and to lose is devastating. To lose by five votes is devastating. To lose by 500 votes is embarrassing.”
Kearney agrees with that it might have been hurtful for losing candidates to see the results, she says.
Both Monahan and Wood were surprised by the reactions they received from the Defender and the Echo, they say.
Wood respects the media’s job to report a story, but this is not a story, she says.
“The story was who won the election, and it is really disappointing that there wasn’t an article in the Echo or the Defender talking about who won the election, what their platform was, why they won the election,” she says. “I thought the coverage of the elections in general was horrible from both papers, and if this is the biggest story that they can pull out of the new S.A. president and vice president, that is embarrassing as well.”
There are many other more important sides of the election that could have been covered, Monahan says.
Monahan stands by his decision to not publish the results, and if he could go back, he would not change what the decision, he says.
“I absolutely still wouldn’t release the results at all,” Monahan says.
Although Boyden and Kearney have mixed feelings about the issue, they do believe that Monahan and Wood made the right decision not to publish the numbers, they say.
The only thing that Monahan would change, is that he would keep a record of the results in the future, he says.
The right the decision was made, Wood says.
“We’re human,” she says. “We’re looking out for the feelings of our students.”