Home » News » University »

Still no explanation for SGA voting glitch

By on April 14, 2010 4:45 am in University / 10 comments

 
email

There is still no explanation as to why online voting for the Student Government Association president and vice president ended 12 hours earlier last weekend than planned.

The competition between Troy junior Evan Agnello and Garden City senior Brittany Mouzourakis was cut short Sunday morning because of a “glitch” in the online voting system, officials say.

Mouzourakis and Muskegon senior Dave Breed, her running mate, were named the winners later that day.

Marysville senior Sean Howard and Flint senior Sarah Lechota served as the election committee directors and were in charge of handling the voting.

The election committee directors examined the votes during the voting process and said the system seemed to be working, Howard said.

“We had about a week working on the ballot,” Lechota said. “It worked fine on the first six days.”

The election committee ran the press conferences, the debate and the election itself.

They then reported the results to Mount Pleasant senior Jason Nichol, who previously served as SGA president, said Tony Voisin, director of Student Life.

Despite the circumstances surrounding this year’s election, Nichol is still happy with the results.

“We did the best we could to make it fair,” Nichol said. “The election directors have done an exceptional job.”

However, the lack of time to vote on Sunday was a disadvantage to both parties. The voting Web site, vote.cmich.edu, closed at midnight Sunday rather than noon as originally advertised.

“It not only hurt the Agnello campaign, but it hurt Brittany’s as well,” Howard said. “Twelve hours on the morning of Sunday wouldn’t have made a difference.”

History of trouble

This was not the first SGA election mishap which has affected the voting process.

Last year during the election, some votes did not count, and the students were unable to vote again, Mouzourakis said.

In 2006, the voting site experienced a technical glitch at 12:30 a.m., which was not discovered until 3 a.m., on the final day of voting. The site closed the election 2 hours early.

Howard and Lechota have already discussed plans to fix the site for next year, although neither will be back to run it.

“We are going to make the endorsement to the Mouzourakis administration,” Howard said. “We feel it’s a good Web site, it just needs to be tweaked.”

The Web site also is used to elect SGA ambassadors and vote for homecoming ambassadors.

 

Tags

, , , , ,

Related Posts

 
  • Observer

    I am going to assume the issue was the common confusion of 12 am and 12 pm. Someone who programmed the election closing time probably forgot that 12 am Sunday is preceded by 11:59 Saturday. A few years ago the same mistake was made for Up all night.

  • Illegitimate.prez

    Illegitimate.

  • the machine

    No explanation? It seems pretty obvious that it was an error in setting the closing time: 12 AM instead of 12 PM, there's your 12 hours. It's a fairly common human error, and by no means a “technical glitch.”

  • AlGore

    gitches happen all the time, look at florida in 2000, what people need to do is just accept the glitch as a part of life and not question whether there is any human error involved that could have made it a fair election

  • AlGore

    as long as both sides are equally harmed by the error, aka two wrongs do make a right when you win, there is no need to investigate

  • Common error

    this was just the type of thing that happens all the time am instead of pm…i dont think it was on purpose and i think that we they just need to be a bit more careful in the future and move on from this. there is no need for a revote or recount or whatever…both sides lost time so i think that is fair.

  • Midnight Reader

    The point of the matter is that SGA every year messes this up. It is unfair to the students that wait till the end to make an educated decision are told it is too bad that you did not vote sooner or you should have voted later. Why can't anyone understand that this is the most unamerican thing when this is sometimes the only way to get the kids voices heard. No matter who wins or loses the voting needs to be done right and fair and the “Election Committee”, a bunch of kids that obviously have no clue about ethics, need to be upset with themselves and SGA needs to be upset with themselves for having a tainted election. I would be upset if my daughter won an unfair election and just told everyone “it happens sometimes”.

  • Illegitimate.prez

    It's never going to change because different kids run the election every year. The people who screw up the voting are never around the next year. This is a sham; it's an embarrassment. You know there were shenanigans. The SGA Elections Committee chair, Sean Howard, had a complaint filed against him for harassing the supporters of Agnello. He works with Agnello supporters and he was openly campaigning against Agnello at their workplace. And you expect him to be fair? Give me a break.

  • Time to move on

    mistakes were made people didnt get to vote…lots did…they will try to fix it next year…move on…and stop crying about Sean Howard and is “harassing” supporters you are just spewing accusations and crying about the results…move on please…just move on nothing is going to happen you just sound like a big cry baby…GET OVER IT!

  • Erica

    They will “try” to fix it next year.

    It' 2010, and the internet has been around awhile. It's used for just about everything. Hopefully their “trying” to fix it works next year, considering how simple the website is.