Online voting errors complicate elections

The spring USG elections were complicated by two errors on the voting website this weekend that temporarily omitted a candidate's statement and picture and left some candidates off the ballot.

For a short period after voting began early Friday morning, the online ballot did not allow students to vote for Milo Adams '04 for social chair of his class or for Aaron Bianco '05, a candidate hoping to be elected to the U-Council.

"We stopped the voting after a little more than an hour," USG president Nina Langsam '03 said.

Soon afterward, Langsam sent a campus-wide e-mail that notified students who had voted between midnight and 1:30 a.m. that their votes were not counted. Those students were then allowed to vote again, Langsam said.

The error occurred because of a miscommunication between USG election officials and the web coordinators. Mike Kimberly '03, USG treasurer and senior election official, said the omissions were purely the result of an oversight.

While that mistake was fixed soon after voting began, the candidate statement and photograph of U-Council candidate Sarah Cowherd '05 were not included on the site during the first day of voting, though her name did appear on the ballot.

Cowherd first noticed the error herself and then notified USG, she said.

"They were fast to say that they were sorry and that they would correct it as soon as possible," she said.

Cowherd then had to resubmit her statement. Kimberly took responsibility for the mistake. He said he failed to include Cowherd's statement with the others forwarded to web coordinators Dan Ho '04 and Jeff Bigham '03.

"Needless to say I still feel pretty badly about it," Kimberly said.

Cowherd and USG members then discussed methods of remedying the situation. An agreement was reached in which any student who had voted during the period in which the statement and photo were missing would be allowed to revote. Langsam sent another e-mail to the student body on Saturday.

She said she thought the settlement was fair.

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However, Cowherd said she still was "extremely frustrated" about the incident. She has agreed not to contest the election because, she said, "[USG] made it pretty clear that that was not what they wanted me to do."

To successfully contest an election, Cowherd said she would need the support of three-fourths of the USG Senate, something she was not sure she could attain.

"It's frustrating," she said, adding that the solution was decided upon to prevent her from contesting the elections rather than to be fair.

Both Kimberly and Langsam said the situation this year was more difficult because the USG comedy show occurred the same night that voting began. Kimberly also said this was the first USG election the web coordinators have handled.

Voting ended at 11:59 p.m. yesterday. Results are scheduled to be announced today. Kimberly said runoffs are likely, especially in the highly contested races for presidency of the classes of 2003 and 2005.