Two of three candidates told election tallies early

USG election managers shut down the campaign website of Tom Haine '08 — who is facing off against Grant Gittlin '08 in the runoff for their class presidency — for publicizing incorrect voting numbers evidently given to him by the managers.

Haine sent an email to members of the junior class yesterday morning citing voting percentages from the first election round. The information had not been publicly disclosed at the time.

"In the initial election 58 [percent] of Juniors voted for a NEW class President," Haine said in the email. "These seem to represent broad discontent among '08ers ... but discontent with what?"

USG vice president and elections manager Josh Weinstein '09 said that Haine is being penalized because he distributed incorrect information. In reality, Weinstein said, 56 percent of the 662 juniors who voted in the first round chose either Haine or Aaron Spolin '08, the third candidate, instead of Haine's claim of 58 percent of all juniors. Gittlin received 43.5 percent of the votes, with Haine garnering 32.02 percent and Spolin receiving 24.47 percent.

The USG election guidelines do not prohibit candidates from having access to election results before they are officially released, or from citing initial election results during runoff campaigns.

Haine could not be reached for comment.

Weinstein said both Spolin and Gittlin had asked him for the election numbers at 4 p.m. Tuesday afternoon, but Weinstein did not disclose the information because "we were still waiting for confirmation from the registrar." Then Spolin and Haine asked USG academics chair Sarah Breslow '08 and treasurer Mike Monagle '09 for the numbers at 8 p.m. that night, and Breslow and Monagle gave them the information.

Breslow said the numbers Haine received from them Tuesday evening may not have been accurate. "Tom was given the numbers offhand, they were rounded off and not official results, just what we remembered when he asked," she said in an email. "He got excited by them, it seems, and shared them even though they were not precisely accurate." Breslow is a photography editor for The Daily Princetonian.

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Gittlin said that when he saw Haine's email, he was surprised because he had "specifically asked Josh ... if [the] numbers were going to be released to the 'Prince' — as they traditionally had been — to let all the candidates know at the same time," and Weinstein told him that they would be.

Weinstein said Breslow and Monagle disclosed the information to Haine and Spolin because they "were not aware that we were going to delay results to the next day, pending confirmation from the registrar," adding that had he known Haine and Spolin had been given the percentages, he would have contacted Gittlin to make sure he was also informed.

Weinstein said he thinks the current controversy stems from the fact that only two of the three candidates were told the numbers. "I think the real issue is that Grant didn't know as well," he said. "There's no rule against it, but in terms of equitability, all the candidates should've known."

Gittlin said he thinks the fact that he was not informed is "unfortunate," but added, "Let's not forgot who got the most votes yesterday."

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Weinstein said he regretted the ambiguity in the rules regarding when candidates can be informed of the election percentages. "Ideally we should've waited for the registrar to approve the results [before informing anyone of the numbers]," he said. "From a procedural perspective it might've been better."