The circumstances are clear. Former SGA President Michael Benson and VP Chad Cooper were forced to resign their SGA posts after being found responsible for Code of Conduct Violations. The remaining members of SGA’s executive board scheduled a special election, to fill the vacant positions, on August 2nd. However, based upon their OSCCR hearing, Former President Benson and VP Cooper would not be eligible to run on August 2nd. In fact, they would not be able to run until a later date in September, such as the date requested in an appeal submitted by SGA Senator Heidi Buchanan, September 8th. Now keep in mind, many senators would not be able to attend the scheduled Joint Senate in August, due to co-op restrictions or the fact that all freshman senators are home for the summer. Understanding this fact, the Executive Board announced a “straw poll” vote, which I should add is an unofficial vote by definition, to be conducted through email. So around 6 pm on Wednesday, July 27th, VP for Administration John Guilfoil on behalf of Interim President Ashley Adams forwarded to “all senate members” a copy of the appeal and a method of voting by email reply. Whether all senate members received a copy is a point of much contention, as at least two Senators have made clear that they, in fact, did not. The surprising number of “no-responses” may lead you to believe that aggressive spam-filters or incorrect or outdated email addresses may have caused a problem. The replies were to be submitted by noon on Monday, August 1st. This gave senators less than five days to check their email (let me remind you that the email address they used was the email address originally specified, perhaps not the most frequently checked one) and respond. Is it possible that some senators were not aware of the appeal, did not check that specific email address, and as a result did not vote? Most likely. On August 1st, the votes were tallied. The email sent out that afternoon cited the results as: 39 votes for the appeal, 18 against and 21 abstentions. However, what was not told in the original email, but surfaced in later communication was that 21 senators did not abstain by replying “I abstain,” rather only one senator had replied abstaining, but the board counted no-responses as abstentions also. The more exact vote count was as follows: 39 for the appeal, 18 against, 1 abstention, 20 no-reply. Both the ratio of “yea” to “nay” votes and the ratio of “yea” to “nay plus abstentions” exceed a two-thirds supermajority. However, according to the rules set out for the special “straw-poll” vote, the appeal did not need to pass a two-thirds majority of the voting members (yea, nay, and abstentions included) but rather needed to pass a two-thirds majority of ALL the members of senate, aware or not! Those members of senate included all freshman senators who are home, all senators who are on co-op, those who have aggressive spam blockers, senators who do not check their originally specified email address often, all senators who were on vacation of any sort, all senators who’s computers were broken, who’s internet was down or who were just not able to check and reply to an email within 5 days! Lets look into the vote a little further, not only was the vote secretive, but there was no confirmation of whether your vote was tallied or in what way. In no way do I suggest that there was collusion or any attempt to overtake the election, but I do not trust email and the problems that can be encountered. The end result of the process leaves us still without a replacement for former VP Cooper (early replacement of leaders was one of the reasons the e-board felt it necessary to schedule such an early election) and no choice but to affirm VP Adams as our new SGA President, as she is running unopposed. Is this really in the best interest of student-government, or the best interest of Northeastern? Let me publicly state that I have full confidence in VP Adam’s ability to run our organization, perhaps better than anyone else, but does that make this steamrolled election any more valid? It is very coincidental that scheduling an earlier election not only practically guarantees her unopposed standing, but also guarantees her a larger cash stipend for her status. The procedure since it was decided that former President Benson and VP Cooper were to step down has, in my view, been shady and underhanded every step of the way. If the intent of an early election was to find the best possible candidate for the job I can almost guarantee you that it has not been accomplished by having with a crippled attendance and voting base. However, if the intent was otherwise, whether to specifically exclude certain people from running, or to hand-pick an executive board, congratulations, it seems you are well on your way, letting almost nothing stop you. The student government association has a lot of power on Northeastern’s campus. I am fearful that this shady election and steamrolling will cause senators or future prospects to become disenfranchised with our organization. Further, these underhanded, dare I say political, tactics may unfortunately shift our organization from one focused on the Northeastern student body, to one where politics is key. Let’s hope the news of this does not catch the eye of any faculty or staff member who favors our organization, for the kind of trickery and deceit may not be considered so favorably. I wish the best of luck to our organization to recover from this tragic series of events. I hope the new executive board members prove everybody wrong in their accusation that they, are in fact, NOT the best person for the job, rather just people filling in. I encourage everyone reading this to get more information from SGA e-board members or other articles in this newspaper. Perhaps something will persuade you to get involved in SGA, although I promise, not every decision in our organization is so orchestrated as our most recent.

Jim Edwards Sophomore – 2009 Electrical Engineering College of Engineering SGA Senator

[email protected] 267-218-2691