Lenahan wins USG presidency

Alex Lenahan '07 has been elected USG president by an overwhelming majority after a second round of voting that ended even more bitterly than the first.

Offended by fresh accusations of election rules violations, presidential candidate Jeremy Johnson '07 withdrew from the race immediately after polls closed at 1 p.m. Thursday, giving his opponent the presidency by default.

But Lenahan received 78 percent of the vote and would have won the presidency anyway, USG president Leslie-Bernard Joseph '06 said.

"I'm just looking forward to working with students, talking with students, meeting with students," Lenahan said. "I want to make sure Princeton goes forward the best it can and every student is having the best experience" (see Q&A).

In interviews and correspondence with The Daily Princetonian, Johnson stressed what he saw as deep flaws in the elections process, describing the outcome as a "well-stolen election."

"This week has taught me an interesting lesson about what politics is like without checks and balances to protect against corruption and partisanship by those already in power," Johnson said in an email. "This week, the Princeton University USG espoused the political practices of a mid-20th century banana republic."

"Even if I were to win, I wouldn't want to do so and have my campaign practices and motivations called into question," Johnson added in an interview. "A number of people, including Leslie [Bernard-Joseph], have made this electoral process a farce. The inherent partisanship is more than obvious. This entire process is corrupt ... I think the elections managers stole an election."

Lenahan stressed that despite the negativity throughout the elections process, he had "a lot of respect for Jeremy and for all the candidates."

"Jeremy is still going to be a U-Councilor, and we've already exchanged emails and we have a lot of respect for each other," Lenahan said. "I hope all of the other candidates continue to be involved in the USG and campus life because I think they have a lot to contribute."

Lenahan described the best campaign situation as one "when there are no violations." He noted, however, that "in this election there were people who did get penalty points." He added, "When you run you just prefer for everyone to be clear on the rules, but sometimes people violate the rules or are accused of violating the rules."

Johnson's decision to withdraw stemmed from two new accusations of election rule violations, which followed an ongoing dispute between elections managers and Johnson that began soon after the campaign began.

Outgoing USG Vice President Jesse Creed '07 sent Johnson an email Wednesday night to inform him of reports that a member of his campaign was operating a voting station while campaigning for him, constituting a violation of elections rules.

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The email, a copy of which Creed provided to the 'Prince,' read: "It has come to our attention from a very reliable source that some members of your campaign team have adopted some illegal habits in operating computer voting stations. We wanted to bring this to your attention and we hope not to hear other instances of these types of violations occurring."

Johnson said he talked with voting station operators and determined that one operator at each station was not campaigning and any other that might have been campaigning was at least five feet away — all in accordance with the rules in the USG Elections Regulation Packet.

Later Wednesday night and early Thursday morning, Joseph and Johnson exchanged increasingly heated emails concerning a Pride Alliance email endorsement of Johnson. The message contained a statement of support for the LGBT community from Johnson himself and was sent out to all of the organization's members late Wednesday night.

Because Johnson had accumulated more than 20 penalty points, which are assigned to candidates for rules violations, the Pride Alliance's email endorsement amounted to another elections rule violation, Creed and Joseph said.

Johnson, however, said he has no reason to hide the endorsement, which he considers well within elections rules.

Elections rules state that a "candidate further loses the privilege of sending campaign emails" when he or she accumulates 20 points. Creed and Johnson differ on whether the Pride Alliance email endorsement — sent by the group on Johnson's behalf, with a message from him — constitutes a campaign email.

General elections rules state that "[c]andidates are discouraged from sending unsolicited campaign emails, but are not prohibited from doing so." The rules also states that: "Mass emails are allowed so long as recipients are listed in a BCC format only. Organizations and people other than the candidate are also discouraged from, but allowed to email on his or her behalf, again in BCC format only."

The tone of the email exchanges was also a point of contention. Johnson said that he found Creed and Joseph's emails "rather offensive" — and Creed said the same about the emails Johnson sent.

The dispute finally led to Johnson's withdrawal from the race. "I read these emails late this morning and, rather than engage myself in a futile battle for my honor, I chose to withdraw my candidacy and congratulate them on a well-stolen election," Johnson said in his email to the 'Prince.'

Creed had a different opinion, however. He said that though some of the emails he and Joseph sent "might have been stern because we were trying to send a message that wasn't being heard," they "certainly" weren't offensive.

Joseph was similarly blunt. "He had an email sent out on his behalf and had someone operating a campaign station," Joseph said. "There's nothing else to comment on."