Still no explanation for SGA voting glitch
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.
