Exams are looming and classes are coming to a close, but no end is in sight for the Student Government Association elections.
Two more grievances were filed yesterday by the A.G.E.N.C.Y. party, less than thirty minutes away from the 4:30 p.m. deadline to file grievances, one against the M.A.C. party and one against Dean of Student Affairs William Porter.
The elections originally began on April 1. Now, several weeks and a nullified election later, students are still without a president or even confirmed senators a week before exams.
SGA is not releasing the results from last week's election, which ended at midnight on April 17. Election Commissioner Kenneth Taylor said the results are being held in order to allow one final chance for grievances to be filed and addressed.
The election results were scheduled to be released Monday at a 4:30 p.m. after the deadline to file grievances, but according to Taylor, the meeting was cancelled due to the potential grievances, as well as a lack of time to communicate the time and place of the meeting to other members of the SGA. The Daily Helmsman learned of this scheduled meeting last Thursday in a meeting with Melanie Murry, associate University counsel, and William Porter, assistant vice president for student affairs and dean of students.
"At some point, there has to be a stop," Taylor said. "We feel it would be better to release the results after everything is finalized."
Taylor said that while there is no way anyone could file a grievance that would result in the latest election being overturned, there is still the potential that members of the party will be disqualified or unable to take office due to potential fines imposed as a result of the grievances.
Taylor said that while no administrator had a copy of the election results, they are tallied and ready to be released.
"We have access to the results, we have just chosen not to release them at this time," Taylor said.
Taylor said that after the results of the overturned election were released, the organization took measures to prevent them from being released prematurely. He justified this by comparing the situation to the one faced by newsrooms across the country following the contested 2000 presidential election.
"After the 2000 election, television stations changed their policies on reporting election results to suit the situation," Taylor said. "Basically, we changed our policy to fit the situation we were in."
Porter said no one in the administration or members of the election commission have the results at this time. Thursday, Porter said he did not know of any deadline for releasing the election results, and that 4:30 Monday afternoon was the last chance to file grievances.
The election was conducted by computer science Professor Max Garzon, who is currently out of town. Taylor said that when all of the grievances have been finalized, he will be able to acquire a copy of the election results via one of Garzon's graduate students.
