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Mouzourakis, Breed new leaders of SGA; Agnello asking for re-vote

By Tony Wittkowski on April 12, 2010 8:00 am in University / 77 comments

 

Brittany Mouzourakis

Brittany Mouzourakis and David Breed were elected the next president and vice president of the Student Government Association today — but not without controversy.

The pair had 1,170 of the 2,121 student votes, said Sean Howard, a Marysville senior and SGA election committee co-chairman. Their opponents, Troy junior Evan Agnello and Highland junior Jessica Richard, received 951 votes, leaving Mouzourakis/Breed with 55.2 percent of the votes.

However, officials say there were problems with the election process.

Press releases from the Agnello campaign claim some students who attempted to vote after midnight Saturday could not because there was nothing to vote for — cutting the election short by 12 hours.

Howard acknowledged problems with the system.

“We apologize that people could not vote,” Howard said. “However, this is the official vote.”

Howard said voting was supposed to end at noon on Sunday and heard of several students who were not able to log into voting.

Howard said himself, current SGA President Jason Nichol, and Sarah Lechota, a Flint senior and co-chairwoman of the election committee, could make the decision to call for a re-vote. But Nichol, a Mount Pleasant senior, said the group decided it was unnecessary.

One of the students who was unable to vote after midnight was Northville junior Matthew Amatucci.

“I was informed the polls closed at noon,” Amatucci said. “I tried to vote at 3 and 9 a.m., but it said no election was running.”

Agnello’s response

Agnello said he felt the election was unfair to the students.

“This is absurd and goes against all principles of open, honest and clean elections,” he said in a press release to Central Michigan Life. “This election was never transparent and it was clear from the beginning that certain forces within SGA would do whatever they could to ensure the status-quo won.”

Richard could not be reached for comment Sunday and Agnello would not offer further comment beyond his press releases.

Agnello said in the press release, he contacted Tony Voisin, director of Student Life. Voisin told CM Life voting is left completely to SGA.

Both parties would see drawbacks from the fact the voting site was down, Breed said.

“Even if they did close early, we were also at a disadvantage,” the Muskegon senior said. “Not only could their people not vote, but ours couldn’t as well.”

Mouzourakis said glitches happen every year. Last year, a glitch left all votes from the first day of voting uncounted and forced some voters to recast.

“I don’t think it needs a re-vote,” she said. “Most people had their chance to vote and, plus, 219 votes is really hard to get.”

This year’s election was longer than those in the past by a day and a half. Last year, the election went from Monday through Friday, Howard said, whereas, this year, it was extended through the weekend as well.

New administration

Mouzourakis, a Garden City senior, said she has already begun plans for the next SGA meeting, scheduled to begin at 6 p.m. Monday in Moore Hall 112.

“I think it is really exciting — Dave and I are well prepared,” said Mouzourakis. “We will be announcing open Executive Committee seats and talking about what we want to do for next year.”

With 2,121 total votes cast in this year’s SGA election, approximately 10.4 percent of the university’s estimated 20,444 students participated.

 

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  • JP

    I am sitting next to Mat right now, and I can verify that he is not Ben Lazarus.

  • Mat

    I really don't know where all this “Ben” stuff is coming from… Anyway, I'm hardly conservative, and I'm not sure what makes you think that. I also never asked why no one respects me. I don't expect anyone here to like me since I have an opposing view. In order for your own view on the issue to remain undamaged, you have to think that my views are unfounded. It's simple psychology, and I don't blame you for following along. Do you even know what “conspiracy theory” means? Suggesting that Evan ran as an attempt to bring issues to public attention is hardly a conspiracy. I do, however, love your warm attitude and acceptance. Supposedly being a conservative apparently makes one a waste of space…. You should look around the web for some notable conservatives and see what life would be like without them.

  • Tyler

    Well we all know we should always believe what we read right…why go and talk to the actual leaders and ask them what they do…no lets just get second hand information from people that already don't like SGA…that sounds like a great idea.

    And FYI…RSO is just a registered student organization. most RSO's are out for their own agenda and not to serve the student body as a whole. Furthermore there are other groups on campus that get paid to work just FYI. Try homecoming committee, sibs, mainstage, PB..are a list of a few…why do they get paid b/c they are putting long hours in working for the campus…do they get paid a lot…no…but regardless all of this is moot at this point…why…

    because Brittany/Dave won and Evan lost…i would say Jessica too but I don't think she exists….there wont be a recount and Evan can get over it and find something new to complain about…and as for SGA they will have new leadership that will work for students like they always have…and if you have such a problem with SGA maybe you should consider joining and trying to make a difference instead of suggesting getting rid of the oldest student organization on campus…i do not think it is going anywhere

  • Mark

    Mat,

    Get over it…you sound as bad as Evan…so you dont like they get paid a small about to do a job that you think people should do for free…we get it…but obviously the students who cared enough to vote didn't because they still voted for Brittany enough to have her beat out Evan even after they knew that SGA leaders get paid…see here is the thing…the rest of us just don't care that much that SGA leaders get paid a little bit of money. even if they gave that money back i wouldnt see it. so what i am going to vote for a guy that just wants to bring tailgate back and claims to lower tuition. never have i ever heard of tuition being lowered. its just not going to happen. so i vote for the candidate that has better ideas and can do more for us students.

    So here it is…we know they get paid…and we know we wont get the money back even if they didn't so give me the better of the two…which is NOT Evan…end of story…

  • Sean

    Agnello ran for the same reason that all College Republican (and whatever other name they go by) groups field candidates for these campus-wide elections: to rehearse for future campaigning. You could see it in any one of his fliers, debate statements, etc. He showed little interest in actual policy, but rather simply went after 'hot button' issues that would arouse emotions and sought to tear down his opponents' credentials, all the while spewing falsehoods about his own.

    Look at the debate; he claimed that the previous administration allowed “shenanigans” with the tailgate rules when they had no power to control the rules and actually advocated for more student input in how said rules would be instated. He claimed that he would advocate lower tuition, but offered no ideas about how we would do that and came pretty close to admitting that it wouldn't happen when he said in the debate that the state can't foot the bill. He came up with the laughable lie that he spent three years in SGA when he actually only served as an SGA rep for one semester and rarely showed while holding that position- Phil does a much better job, I might add (for the rest of you, don't feel bad if you don't get it).

    As for SGA stipends, I would reform that, but they are there for the simple reason that the SGA Executives perform a full-time job. I've served on the e-board of an RSO for two years and headed a committee for a charitable event for two years as well, and I can tell you that from what I know, those sorts of tasks are not comparable to that of an SGA Executive.

    I would make changes to how these are distributed and wouldn't rule out eliminating them entirely, but they are there for a legitimate reason; not simply to reward the politically successful, but to facilitate the less financially successful to serve in this capacity.

    I don't know Mouzourakis and can't speak as to whether she “just wanted to be 'important' and not have to pay for her credits”, but I have known David Breed, the new VP, for about eight years. I have seen him accomplish a lot, both as a student and Program Board President, and in everything that he does, he pours out his efforts into helping those around him and leaving whatever he is involved in better than how he found it. I'm very happy that he's such a major player on campus.

  • Sean

    Thousands could have been disenfranchised? You mean that people were going to stumble on over to their computers after getting drunk on a Saturday night and vote for SGA Pres/VP? Or were they going to vote after Evan gave them an energy drink for their vote after partying at his place on this past weekend? He lost by 10 percentage points, 10! If that happened in a “real election”, it would be called a blowout. Give it a rest.

  • Mat

    I don't claim that Evan did a good job, and I definitely don't claim he deserves to be in office. From what I can tell, he did a rather poor job running for the office (not showing up for debates, etc.). The point I'm trying to make is that the benefits of being in the office encourage people to run for the wrong reasons. I also don't see how losing the stipend would deter less financially stable people from running for the position. I would think the experience should be payment enough. Why can't it be treated like an internship? Most educational experiences on campus are paid for by the participant, so this sort of experience given to the student at no cost sounds like a rather nice offer.

    My other concern is that even if they do run for the right reasons (like your friend Breed), there's not a lot that can be accomplished by an organization that has no real power. The moral of the story is that I have no faith in the Student Government, and I don't think that my tuition should have to absorb the costs of their operation.

    I also would like to say that I appreciate your intelligent, well-thought-out response. You're the first person that didn't try to attack me for some petty, unrelated reason.

  • Phil

    If you read what he typed, he told you he had friends previously in SGA. I am that friend. I can tell you from experience that SGA does nothing but pass resolutions with no real meaning or power, and hand out money to other RSO's. That's it. We occasionally get “consulted” on minor things around campus, such as installing more emergency callboxes, but nothing ever came of it.

  • JackJ

    It would be amazing – what a wonderful world we would live in!

    We can only hope that someday we shall be so lucky…

  • Dick

    I'm sitting next to Ben Lazarus right now and I can see that he is typing as “Mat”

  • Sean

    Interesting…I've known Mat for four years and have never heard him go by the name “Ben Lazarus”.

  • Sean

    You're right; it could be considered an internship and we could all save ourselves a quarter- it could also be considered a job, something which most simply chose to support in this election, or as Evan would wail, this “sham”. I frankly think that SGA is becoming more relevant and ambitious, like a number of things on campus, have no problem supporting it in the capacity of giving it a quarter, and think that concerns over the cost here are misdirected.

  • Phil

    What a way to be vindictive. You can't oppose Mat's viewpoints on it's own merits, so you have to try and convince yourself that he is this Ben person so you can make an Ad Hominem attack against him. Mat is not whoever this Ben person is. Mat is my personal friend, I have watched him type out a majority of these posts, and can say with 100% certainty that he is in no way affiliated with any SGA candidate. He is a concerned student who has a viewpoint that people may not agree with, and nothing more.

  • Mat

    Perhaps you've heard of “getting nickel and dimed.” This is a good example of that. After two semesters, I will have saved enough quarters to buy a snack from the vending machine, and frankly, that's worth a lot more to me than SGA ever will be. Also, in my tenure here at CMU, SGA has never been relevant or useful. I guess we should just agree to disagree at this point as I am getting pretty bored with the whole issue.

  • Concerned CM Life Reader

    I understand the Office of Student Life has claimed it will not interfere in the affairs of a student organization, but clearly this situation is different. In this case, the student government has real power and authority above that of any other student organization — it impacts the daily on-campus lives of all students. Additionally, student government receives a sizable chunk of taxpayer money to operate — making the entity a public body under Michigan law.

    Mr. Agnello ran a spirited campaign for student government president. Unfortunately, he was disenfranchised when voting for the student government election was cut short by 12 hours.

    I understand that Mr. Agnello has contacted the Office of Student Life, but officials — namely Mr. Anthony Voisin — have refused his request to conduct an investigation and order a re-vote.

    Again, I understand the university’s reluctance to involve itself. However, this election doesn't have any appearance of legitimacy.

    It is also rather absurd for the Office of Student Life to claim it has no business interfering in this matter when the election is clearly overseen by administration officials, as voting is conducted on the official university website.

    I typically refrain from commenting on university matters, but I believe this situation warrants action as well as public attention.

    Something irregular occurred. What that something was nobody knows, which is why an investigation is needed.

    While some will claim that Mr. Agnello was behind and wouldn’t have won the election, we can’t say that with certainty because not all students were allowed to vote.

  • chips1087

    I tried reading through all of the comments but got bored…I have a few questions for anyone who can answer them..
    1. what has the SGA President/V.P. Done? (actually done, not given input to the trustees)
    2. What has the SGA as a whole actually accomplished?
    3. How is it that we as students think the University lets the SGA make decisions about things they have no ACTUAL experience in?
    4. What the SGA Does with over $100,000 every year? (In this fall semester's newsletter, there was talks of adding funding to the leadership institute, another giant money pit scheduled to be closed?)
    5. Finally, why, with 267 Registered RSO's with a Minimum of 10 members to start…(Thats 2670 give or take a few hundred people in more than one RSO) who each have things to do with SGA total only just over the TOTAL amount of votes? did the other 27,000ish students just do nothing?

    For relevency's sake, can we keep the answers to something done in the last 5 years?

  • Josh_Gibbons

    I'm happy Mouzourakis won. I don't want that crazy conservative * anywhere near this university. However, I hope the new president has the courage to do something about the tailgate problems.

  • Concerned CM Life Reader

    What's wrong with conservatives? I thought we valued diversity at CMU. Sadly, it seems like lefties such as you don't believe in what you preach.

  • Students of CMU

    Dear Nerds,
    Nobody cares about SGA…well except you guys. You're the same people who get off on power trips (you really have none) and writing long boring policies because you have nothing else better to do.
    The fact that about 10% of campus even voted should prove to you that nobody cares and they know you can't really do anything. You're all basically playing 'Let's pretend we're in politics.” If it wasn't for handing out money to RSO's nobody would show up to the meetings.
    In short, you just love to hear yourselves talk and are inflated with an ego that doesn't exist.

    Love you

    The Students of CMU

  • Illegimate prez

    Why hasn't CM Life investigated the fact that the SGA Elections Committee chairman harassed Agnello supporters with whom he worked with at an off-campus business? It seems to me that Mr Howard would be clearly bias based on this. CMU needs to step in and run a re-vote. The president-elect is not legitimate.

  • Shhhhh

    OMG!!! its over stop crying move on…your not going to get a recount…not going to get an investigation…go cry to people who actually care…CM-LIFE doesn't care about your wild crazy stories…

  • Tony

    I attended one SGA meeting for my SGA rep when she couldn't make it, and I learned that we successfully got the SAC to extend its hours again…that's pretty significant, in my opinion.

  • Tony

    You were probably one of those SGA reps that sits on facebook while stuff goes on at the meetings. SGA has done several things and has a ton of potential if people didn't go in there texting and checking facebook. It's pitiful to see people write, “SGA doesn't do anything.”

  • Illegitimate.prez

    Do you work for CM Life? Who are you? You said “recount” which is the choice of words today's editorial writer used . . . recount has never been used before. Everyone has been saying re-vote.

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