Student Council (StuCo) election procedures are not meant to be a hot topic. However, the recent decision to re-run the presidential elections is in keeping with the flurry of controversy that has marked the majority of elections in recent memory. Issues from last month's campaign alone range from unbased claims of negative campaigning to mud-slinging. For many students, this has called into question the basic operation of the Board of Elections (BoE) and its evolution over the past two years. The seven-member student board has been riddled with claims of bias, unfairness and lack of transparency.
Protest
"I just want them to run two clean elections, that's all I want," said Student Council President Charles Reyner, '05. "In the three years I've been here, I haven't seen an election without controversy," he said. Unlike past years, the controversy over the '04 elections focused on an appeal and a protest: the disqualification of junior presidential candidate Soren Gandrud and a formal protest submitted by the Johns Hopkins chapter of the American Civil Liberties Union (JHU-ACLU). However, BoE chair Matt Bouloubasis told the News-Letter Wednesday night that he could not find any "clear reason" for the appeals board's decision to redo the elections this week.Director of Student Involvement Jeff Groden-Thomas would not comment on the decision.
"Our goal is not to be in the newspaper," said former BoE co-chair Rick Aseltine. "But with all these appeals, that's not going to happen." Aseltine was recently deposed from the Board of Elections after he was found to be breeching a University policy as a full-time SPSBE student.
Disqualifications debate
While this is the first year in recent memory to be marked by mudslinging and a disqualification, candidates in past years have argued over equally controversial campaign problems, such as violating the University's chalking policy and the policy against hanging oversized banners in the breezeway. In an attempt to boost voter turnout, the BoE has loosened its campaigning procedure rules, as reported in the April 11, 2003 issue of the News-Letter. Earlier this semester, the campaign limit was raised from $100 to $500, a move intended to stimulate "creativity" of campaigns. "A few years ago, a student got disqualified for having a poster on their backpack," Reyner said. "The BoE tried to avoid that."
This year, Aseltine reported that Presidential Candidate Soren Gandrud was disqualified for "about a dozen complaints" of "negative campaigning and unsolicited e-mailing," something that Gandrud called, "a complete exaggeration." "Basically I was innocent of the charges against me, specifically negative campaigning," he said. "There was no evidence of negative campaigning except on the Daily Jolt."
All charges were recently dropped against Gandrud. Aseltine, who received e-mail complaints against candidates, said that some were "unbased," and were dismissed. "Someone just sent in, "So and so was negative campaigning,'" he said. While the BoE's bylaws state,"Negative campaigning or deliberate misrepresentation of candidates shall result in immediate disqualification upon investigation of the Board of Elections," Gandrud said that his initial impressions of the disqualification rules were that they were primarily for not turning in a spending report or gross misconduct. As the BoE's bylaws stand now, the board is charged with determining the legitimacy of the complaints, something that Gandrud said led to the unfairness of the election. "The Board of Elections is way too involved in investigations which in this case lead to bias," he said.
Appeals process
This year's appeals have instigated futher confusion with the BoE's appeals process. Aseltine called the Board's position a "bind," when faced with a student complaint. "What do you do, dock the votes? Make them dance in a pink bear suit outside?" he said. "It's basically to the point where you've got to disqualify them when it's a disqualifiable offense, or close to a disqualifiable offense,"he said. Candidates charged with complaints must first come in front of an appeals panel composed of a selected faculty member , the StuCo president and the Director of Student Involvement. According to Gandrud, the appeals board overturned the Board of Elections' decision to disqualify him based on procedural and biased complaints that had been submitted against the Board.
While the Board of Elections could not comment on the reasons behind the decision to redo the Executive elections, StuCo President Charles Reyner said that with the delayed results, the council is being hurt. "What I'm taking from it is that when all this stuff happens, it's impossible for the StuCo to function. It took a lot of focus from what was important, something the BoE is supposed to take care of," Reyner said.
Pre-campaigning controversy
A historical complaint has been the lack of early publicity and the length of campaigning periods. In the April 11 edition of the News-Letter, then BoE board member Matt Bouloubasis was quoted as saying he hoped to extend the campaigning period to increase voter turnout. Although this year's turnout was increased from 789 to 1,041 votes, the campaign period was a mere week long. "Our goal is to have a two week campaign period to allow candidates to get their name out there," Bouloubasis said. "Due to scheduling conflicts, there was only a week this year."
Yet one of the largest disputes of the electoral process was the short span between the information session and the time in which signatures were due. While the current elections allowed 48 hours for students to gather signatures and draft a spending report, the December special elections called after the StuCo Constitution was dissolved allowed less than 12 hours for candidates to gather 50 signatures. "[The BoE] is trying to get [the election] done before finals start, so cut us some slack," Bouloubasis said in the Dec. 4 edition of the News-Letter.
"Everybody was upset about the fact that they had to pull together petitions overnight," said sophomore Saul Garlick about this year's elections. "That's not just how elections should be run at any school," he said. Bouloubasis maintained that the forms had been available on the Board of Election's Web site. "It's up to the potential candidates to get the info they need. The info session were held in proximity to the due dates, but other than that they were posted online well in advance."
JHU-ACLU Co-President Morgan Macdonald said this was not enough. "People don't know what StuCo does anymore. People didn't know what the positions were." The fourth point of the formal protest submitted by MacDonald on behalf of the JHU-ACLU read, "Although the BoE constitution and bylaws do not specify the duties of the BoE when holding an election, notification about election procedures to the student body and subsequently to candidates has not occurred in a timely manner."
...And the campaign begins
While the campaign did acheive heightened student campaigning in the presidential race, candidate Michael Huerta, "06, felt the campaign period was not without flaws. Announced little over 48 hours before they were held, the candidate debates of February 28 were a disappointment, he said. "You can't expect students to come out on a Saturday night without at least a two week's notice. They didn't even bother to really advertise it. The failure was really a BoE failure."
With professionally-created campaign Web sites and coffee times with candidates, independent campaigning was a larger presence on campus this year. "I kind of signed up for it on a whim. But when I saw others ramp up their campaign, I said what the heck I'll ramp up mine, and I'll be competitive," said Huerta, who added a Web site and more creative campaigning methods, with an estimated budget at around $60 - $80 out of a possible $500. He also noted that the politicization of the campaign added to his campaigning motivation. "When things got serious I had to up my ante with a Web site and up my ante with a platform," Huerta said.
However, with an increased visibility of candidates came a rash of negative campaigning. Presidential Candidate Eric Wolkoff, '05, left the race during elections on February 29 due to personal attacks and said that he would have had to run a negative campaign in order to win.
Burrowing into bylaws
One of the largest issues of contention by the JHU-ACLU protest was the nature of the BoE's bylaws. The Board of Elections' Web Site, http://www.stuco.jhu.edu/vote, includes a summary of the BoE's standards and procedures, something that MacDonald called inadequate. "The Constitution and the bylaws should be available to the students at the time of an election, so students know what rules they and the BoE are supposed to abide by," said MacDonald. "Basically, all the information should be available to all students at all times during an election."
In the Feb. 26, 2004 edition of the News-Letter, then BoE co-chair Aseltine said that they would "look into updating its bylaws after this election." Recently re-written into the StuCo bylaws, the BoE is operating temporarily under the old bylaws. Reyner voiced a need for change in their revision: "[The BoE] needs to craft a much more encompassing set of bylaws, spell out everything to the letter. But it's a slippery slope, and pretty soon you'll find yourself disqualifying people for backpacks again."
Eyes towards April elections
Many students remain highly dissatisfied with BoE procedures and say that they are simply not working. "At this point, it's a well-established reputation that the BoE can't run an election. We'll see how it goes," Reyner said. MacDonald voiced frustration with the final rejection of their suggestions.
"They've released the results, which is ignoring a student protest," he said. Aseltine said that the seven point protest by the JHU-ACLU "came off as an attack" on the Board of Elections. "They supposedly want to effect change. However, submitting a protest does not exact any change with the Board of Elections," he said. The JHU-ACLU said they will be continuing their examination of the Board's procedure. "If there's a lot of people who want to get together and start discussing, we're not going to submit it formally, but we hope they consider our suggestions," MacDonald said. Aseltine said he was cautious about the upcoming elections. "If negative campaigning is set as a precedent, it's going to be ugly."
