Contested election sparks discussion of recall in student senate

At the Student Government meeting Wednesday, Senator Douglas Roberts motioned to recall the senator election from the previous week due to an issue of equity regarding the Zoom attendees’ votes.

The election that occurred on October 5 resulted in the election of Jordan Muller to the 90th Student Government. There were five senators present on Zoom, but only one remained by the time it came to tally the votes. According to the senate’s discussion Wednesday, it was unclear how they were to cast their votes. Roberts, unaware of this margin, said their motion was an issue of “equity,” and that there was no intended offense to the candidates, but they believe the recall is necessary “to have an equitable and fair election.” 

The initial vote count resulted in a tie, with nine votes going to each candidate. The final vote counted seven votes for candidate Sydney Dumond and twelve votes for candidate Jordan Muller, according to Speaker Novak. By the time of the vote, there was only one senator present on Zoom. There were no votes cast in the Zoom chat feed observed while tallying the votes, so all senators who did not vote were counted as abstentions.

Senator Sehgbean attended the meeting over Zoom and said he attempted to raise his hand during the meeting, but it went unnoticed. He then unmuted himself and was not heard when he tried to verbalize his question. At that point Sehgbean directly messaged President Zellmer via Instagram about the issue to which she was unable to respond due to being present in the meeting. Muller was the winner of the final vote. 

According to Roberts, they asked Novak after the meeting, “‘Did you count the people on Zoom?” to which Roberts said Speaker Novak responded “Oh, shoot,” recognizing that Zoom was neglected until after the meeting. “This is not to throw anyone under the bus, this is not to be disrespectful,” Roberts said, “This is because I believe that everybody deserves the most equity and fairness in this election.”

Novak said, “I will take the full fall for that,” regarding the lack of clear procedure on how the Zoom attendees were to vote, whether in the chat feed or otherwise. Zellmer said she believes the “clear” way for a Zoom attendee to vote would be through the chat feature. However, this method of casting a vote does not allow for anonymity, as is standard for elections with more than one candidate.

According to her, neither she, the Vice President nor the Speaker received any notification of Zoom technical issues during the meeting so the vote stands, although Zellmer, “get[s] that the burden should have been on us,” to verify that all members could vote. She also read the recall policy from the RSO’s constitutional bylaws.

The bylaw, Article 10 Section 2, states, “The President, Vice President, Senators, and presidential appointees shall be subject to recall. No elected official shall be recalled within the first (1st) three (3) months of the tenure,” and, “A petition to recall an elected official shall be signed only by members of the official’s constituency.” There is no mention of recall procedures for a contested election, such as a similar issue with virtual voters or by cheating.

After 14 minutes of discussion Roberts withdrew their motion and there was no vote. Roberts apologized for the motion and said, “I did not know the margin until today. The whole reason why [I motioned to recall] is because I assumed the margin was changed by a single vote.” There was, however, assurance from Zellmer that a senator will monitor the Zoom attendees in future elections rather than leaving the responsibility to the IT Solutions team who broadcast the meetings.

Write to Carly Bahr at caroline.bahr@mnsu.edu