After completing its audit of the 2003 Student Council elections process, the Vice President of Student Affairs office published its findings to the Elections Reform Ad Hoc Committee meeting Friday.
Vice President for Student Affairs Patricia M. Lampkin commissioned the examination, which resulted in a 35 page report presented to the Elections Reform Ad Hoc Committee. The report details the events of the election, the subsequent controversies and the administration's recommendations for reform.
Although the audit report affirms the decision by the Rules and Ethics committee to hold a runoff in the 2003 Student Council presidential election, the audit states that "the vote docking decision was quite unfortunate."
Council President-elect Daisy Lundy was penalized 2 percent of her vote count due to campaign violations toward the end of the original election.
The penalty "was an unusually strict compliance action that had little precedent in Student Council history and had no explicit textual foundation in the Election Rules," the report states.
The report also acknowledges the alleged unfair treatment of the Lundy campaign.
"The perception and therefore the reality of the Lundy campaign, is that they were not treated fairly," the report states.
Elections Reform Ad Hoc Committee Chair Will Sowers said he was surprised the audit didn't comment on the bias issue further.
"I thought that the audit would have addressed the conflict of interest issue more clearly," Sowers said. "They are trying not to make either side upset and so they decline to make a hard-line decision on anything."
Many Council members and people involved in conducting the audit said they feel the administration needs to play a stronger role in the election process, though the parties differ as to how and to what extent the administration should be involved, the audit said.
Graduate Council representative Lee Hark, who sits on the Elections Reform Ad Hoc Committee, said he values the added help the administration offered.
"We don't lose anything by taking the elections as far away from the bias [of Council] as possible," Hark said.
Sowers, however, expressed concern as to how much the administration would become involved in the election process.
"The most disturbing statement of the entire report was that President [John T.] Casteen could ignore the Ad Hoc Committee's reform efforts and implement his own proposal," Sowers said.
As of press time, the administration could not be reached for comment on the audit.
First Year Council President Noah Sullivan, was interviewed for the audit and is involved with the Elections Reform Ad Hoc Committee as well. Sullivan said he was concerned with how students will be chosen to sit on a proposed Elections Board.
"No matter what you do, the people who will be interested in working on elections will be the ones interested in the outcome of the elections," Sullivan said.
The Elections Reform Ad Hoc Committee's progress report presented to Council last Tuesday suggests the Election Board be chosen by the presidents of the 10 undergraduate and graduate schools. Both the Elections Reform Ad Hoc Committee and the administration's audit outlined specific criteria to be used for selecting students.
The Elections Reform Ad Hoc Committee suggested that no student on the Election Board should hold any elected position or be a member of any endorsing organization.
The audit report also stipulates that selected students should not hold any elected positions or be involved in the election process in any capacity.
Sullivan, however, said he thought there always will be bias, and that the goal should be to balance that bias.
According to Sowers, the Elections Reform Ad Hoc Committee will take the audit into consideration and discuss its proposals at its next meeting Friday. The committee's final recommendations will be made to Council at their April 22 meeting.
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