Elections Board to Hear Dispute
SG's elections board met Monday and decided to hear presidential candidate Jared Torres' election dispute on Friday at 1:30 p.m. Torres has said the last thing he wants to do is drag this out and have a repeat from last year's election that ended up taking more than 100 days to resolve. He also says that what he really wants is a detailed print out of where the votes came from to make sure there was no unusual amount of voting activity coming from one location or IP address.
posted by J.P. at
11:14 PM
34 Comments:
I'm not sure if this is possible, but someone should file a case (whether in student court or an actual court of law) against SA and the administration for making the voting stations so vulnerable to security risks. Having students enter two thirds of their social over wireless in a public area is a ridiculous risk, and someone there needs to be help responsible for that.
I hope everyone realizes that the Torres-Joarder contestation is not student versus student, or candidate versus candidate. Whatever the outcome I think that there is a serious problem with the University administration having control of our Student Government election process.
When I voted for the election statutes it was my understanding that the election commission would have oversight of the polling stations and an outside third party was going provide the service. My initial understanding was that Student Affairs' role was limited to contracting with the third party vender with the concurrence of the Elections Commission and reviewing the results reported by the third party vender prior to the commission publishing them.
I have a major objection to University administration having rights to add votes for anyone, ADA rules or not. If there are some students that can’t use the computer system then they should be forwarded to a poll location to receive assistance.
I also believe it would be better to get the LOWV back. We know they are unbiased.
I now think that we will need to revisit Chapter 300, particularly section 312. It gives Student Affairs almost unlimited authority. I think the students need to maintain some semblance of control over their government.
If the votes were tampered with, i would have expected one side winning by a landslide. It would seem very difficult to tamper with the 3rd party's server so no access to current vote tally. This election was way to close for even if one voting station compromised. Last year's breezeway number= 792 and BU number=163 (which always mainly votes incumbents). I'm still disappointed in sga's and administration's lack of security. SSN are very valuable to thieves and i would like to keep mine a secret. Mike, how difficult would it be to remove 'student numbers' from sga controller paper work?
Its difficult for SGA to control anything at all these days with Student Affairs taking control of everything. If you don't like what's going on you should complain to Dr. Brown, he's the one running the show now.
Hahahahaha.
I love it.
The tables have turned.
Whereas students once complained that SG was taking control of everything and their interests were not being represented, now Student Government is on the short end of the stick with little power, bitching about how Student Affairs is running everything...
as if students were going to have some sort of deranged epiphany where we drink the water and believe that things were better under SG.
They weren't.
You had years upon years to prove that you could effectively promote and accomplish the needs of the students. The consensus was that you didn't and you brought a lot of negative publicity to FAU as a result.
As an FAU student, you should have the intellectual maturity and the pride to say, "We should do what's best for the students and the university, regardless of whether that allows SG a particular power or not."
But from the posts on this board, maturity is evidently not something that goes hand-in-hand with SG officials.
You laugh because the power has been taken out of the hands of the students. Perhaps you do not understand: there were rules, procedures, and guidelines before for the actions and behaviors of SG.
Now, SG's actions will require only the approval of one man: Dr. Brown.
If you truly think it is better for FAU to have this state of affairs after a year or two under the new system, then perhaps you will be justified in feeling this way.
Please bear in mind that Student Affairs is concerned with what the Administration wants, not what the students want.
mike, you sir, are an idiot. only in the past year has fau had negative publicity due to SGA. every other year all i saw were great things from each campus being done for the students.
and, yeah, student affairs needs to butt out of sga. i guess they dont want to follow the laws laid down to them by thee florida state legislature though.
and even though the election results are on a third party server, who's to say their isnt a control panel with the option to change votes or add and remove "invalid" votes.
we dont know since we dont have accees to a peer reviewed and local voting system.
another blunder by a technically inept student affairs.
I think that if the Administration could do a better job and run things better than SG has they should be allowed to do it. But the problem is that they've done a horrible job and have proven to be ineffective and unorganized. So I would prefer that students manage the affairs of student than the administration. That's just my opinion.
Indeed, I seem to recall that in the Senate (House of Representatives be damned!) meeting the week before elections started, it was pointed out publicly and unequivacably that the elections statutes were not finalized as a result of the actions of one man: Dr. Brown. Given the fact that SA is trying to seize as much power and control as they can, this is an obvious red flag.
This would go as less of an issue if one thing were different: the reason new statutes needed to go through SA's process was because SA sneakily and illicitly forced through a new constitution that gave them that power and responsibility.
Is this really the man and the department that students want to see controlling their interests? A man who hasn't been a student in decades, and who has proven to be unreliable in the capacity that HE laid out for himself? A man who has declared in no uncertain terms that he intends to set himself up as dictator of Student Government?
I'm glad I'm leaving here in Spring, but for the sake of future classes at FAU, do not allow Student Affairs to turn Student Government into it's puppet.
Responding to m's question to me:
I don't think it would be very difficult to remove social security numbers from SG's reimbursement and TAR requests once all students are issued Z numbers. Until that time I think we're stuck because the University Contoller's office will need some form of student number to process the paperwork.
I hope, with IRM getting an increased fee, the student information system will be upgraded and Z numbers will be issued to the whole student body.
Provided that the Z numbers roster is kept secure perhaps the Z numbers can replace social security numbers, or parts therefrom, in the future.
I think that this is a good and valid discussion to be had. But we need to look towards the future; we need to ensure that these questions are addressed for the next election and those therafter.
Unless there is any proof of wrongdoing by the Administration (Student Affairs and/or other) people should not be spreading conspiracies fueled by annymosity from a campaign loss. Lets work together people.
Why wasn't the elections supervisor present at the posting of the votes? I knew the when and where the results would be received more than 24 hours before it happend. If I knew this there is no excuse as to why the elections supervisor wouldn't know. Unless the supervisor claims that they were barred from the tallying I do not see this particular contestation having any merit; and as far as I have heard this was not the case.
Also...
Have some fuckin' brass and post your name with your comment. If I were Jason I would delete or prohibit anonymous comments. Why not? After all the UP doesn't allow any anonymous articles in their print edition.
this is a blog. not anything to do with the UP whether jason wants to think it does or not.
so dan, prove SA hasn't messed with the elections. there is so much proving they have. I mean, geeez, having complete control of SIX...MILLION...DOLLARS (doctor evil laugh) would make a lot of people do things that wouldn't be called ethical.
-Enon E Mouse
http://www.sun-sentinel.com/news/local/southflorida/sfl-pdavenport04apr04,0,7042682.story?coll=sfla-home-headlines
FAU gives a quitter 500k+ dollars. I know i would do a great deal for 500k. Why are the clubs budget being cut again???
"You laugh because the power has been taken out of the hands of the students."
I laugh because power has been taken out of the hands of CERTAIN students. And you KNOW what I'm talking about.
"mike, you sir, are an idiot."
Yeah, probably.
"Have some fuckin' brass and post your name with your comment."
Right. I post my name and then my club runs into all sorts of sudden red tape when we try to do something. Thanks but no thanks. It's nice to think we'd all be understanding gentleman (and ladies), but you know that's not the case.
"FAU gives a quitter 500k+ dollars. I know i would do a great deal for 500k. Why are the clubs budget being cut again???"
I agree -- that $500k deal is absolutely ridiculous but it has nothing to do with club budgets. Club budgets come from A&S fees and thankfully we're not paying Davenport out of A&S fees.
As I understand it, part of the reason club budgets were cut (outside of the fact that certain clubs do nothing for students outside their "officers" yet expect money) is because we owe money for the University Center -- sorry, Student Union -- a place run by a man who doesn't even want to put up school spirit items (that students want) because he says it would make the place look "unprofessional." Just another driving reminder that the UC is really a place to be rented out for businesses and seminars and other non-student crap... yet they want us to act like it's our home.
We need a new home.
Michael, that's something we can all agree on. The University Center needs to be redesignated as the FAUCC (Convention Center).
FAU's identification system is backwards. My highschool made the transition to student numbers and stopped using the SS#'s three years ago. Why can't FAU? This practice is dangerous and outdated. The sanctity of SGA elections is the least of my concerns. Ever since my first day at FAU I have questioned by SS#'s were put on tests and posted on walls, now I know that FAU does not care about their student's identities being protected.
did your high school have 27000 students? 3000 dorm students? online registration? and other non interconnected systems?
its going to take a while to transition, if ever.
It would not take a long time, with few exceptions all students are registered on oasis and in the registrar office, it would be easy to generate student numbers and set up a retrieval system under the current system. The whole thing would take 3 weeks to implement.
It would not take a long time, with few exceptions all students are registered on oasis and in the registrar office, it would be easy to generate student numbers and set up a retrieval system under the current system. The whole thing would take 3 weeks to implement.
If BOT and President Brogan are seeking to make FAU a traditional University they must begin behaving like it is a traditional campus, including but not limited to, the constant interferences of internal Student Government procedures by the Vice-President of Student Affairs, imitate the parking of traditional universities, appeal to students seeking a traditional (not commuter) college experience, limit the 'Life Long Learning' (aka geriatric conventions) that take up valuable space in the Student Union and elsewhere on campus, etc. This includes the ineffective manner in which the Student Affairs 'oversaw' the elections this semester.
greg, step into the IT world for a little while,and you will see that this will take longer than 3 weeks (look, i can pull a number outta my butt yay).
Not all these systems are integrated, we have: the owl card center, the dorms door access, dorms housing payment system, chartwells, blackboard, webct, registrar, oasis, myfau, cashiers office, student health, individual colleges with their own access, irm, the Florida Datacenter which holds our transcripts, FACTS, turnitin... all of these would need to be given a new database filled with new student ids, along with an old lookup table of the old ids just to make sure the transition is smooth. there needs to be tons of testing, cause one screwup will cause a number of students to lose access to vital information that is important to them.
You can't just pull a number out your ass when it comes to technology, just because you can make a webpage in frontpage doesn't mean you should be designing fau's! you know, that should only take a matter o hours, its only one page (sarcasm).
get real, and stop farting information. Z numbers are a great idea for new students IDs, it will take months for it to take affect, and hopefully sooner rather than later.
Anonymous Enon,
If I recall correctly we live in America. In America your are innocent until proven guilty. So, SA is innocent unless you can prove that they have done something wrong.
What I said is that unless (unless) The Elections Supervisor was actively barred / banned (forcefully banned) from SA when they received the vote tally there is no grounds for contestation.
Unless (unless) the Elections Supervisor was actively barred / banned from sitting at every laptop setup throughout every campus (are you catching the retardedness of this contestation yet?) there is no grounds for contestation. Even if the Movement party (ha!) was saying that each campus branch elections comissioner should have directly taken oversight (in person) of every laptop that was set up by the school (the ones in the breezeway,the ones in the BU, and the ones in the UC) there is no way that one person could be at three places at once AND go to their classes because after all they are still students first and foremost. So, I say again, that particular contestation is baseless.
If, anyone however (especially SA) did ban/bar the elections officials in any way of form then I say that, as long as there is proof of such action, that there would be grounds for a contestation.
Having the elections supervisor and or commissioners say that "they didn't know" and or "they were never told where to go or where to be" is a piss poor excuse. I knew on Wednesday the when and where the SA was going to get the official count. If I knew then the elections supervisor definately knew (or should have).
I've also heard the question stated, "Why couldn't SA declare the results that night - Wed. 28th?". Hmm... maybe they have better things to do than stay up till midnight to feed ego's and shatter dreams. Then some will say, "That gave SA enough time to do with whatever they wanted to the vote count", and to that I say, prove it!
"But I can't prove it because SA won't give out that information to the public. They are operating with no oversight and with impunity from wrongdoing".
To that I say; now you have an idea of what students have had to deal with from Boca's SGA for the last four years. The tables have been turned on SGA and now they are the ones who feel disenfranchised and wronged. Most of the people in SGA do not even have a clue as to whats going on let alone know enough to care about the students real interests and concerns.
You know little, this is why people remain anonymous; they remain anonymous because they don't actually know whats going on.
To the student (Mike) that is afraid of "outing" themselves for fear that SGA might retaliate against their club financially I say, to remain hidden in order to get more money is cowardness at its worst. I thought that my club (FAU NORML) would get shut down if I spoke up against SGA, so in that respect I do have empathy for your situation. But, instead of trying to shut us down they (SGA) offered us a thousand dollars more (thinking that it would shut us up). We gave that money back, and were the only club last year to ask for a decrease in funds; AND we did everything but shut up. Don't be such a nihilist!
Besides, the clubs budgetary process is totally different now. Soon things will be on a points system which will neutralize most of the politics that you are afraid of contaminating the process. The new system also encourages the clubs to be more organized and innovative. Although I am weary of a few things about this new system I look forward to seeing some of its ideas and goals implimented.
Which reminds me, I've got to write a letter to Jeff Clark. You should to.
You do not need student ID's to be integrated into all the systems. What needs to happen is the removal of SS#'s from use. they only have a few uses and could easily be substituted for another number.
and this is why you are an idiot who shouldn't be talking about how easy it is to mess with a huge infrastructure.
Take a beginning database class that the school offers, and then you will see, to change 27000 records in a vast amount of non connected systems, that also somehow must work together at some point, is NOT an easy and quick task.
Continuing a good-natured debate...
"Jenna Sereni said...
If BOT and President Brogan are seeking to make FAU a traditional University they must begin behaving like it is a traditional campus, including but not limited to: the constant interferences of internal Student Government procedures by the Vice-President of Student Affairs"
There's a lot of talk and fear coming from SG about SA's intrusion, but there's been very few ACTUAL POINTS being made here.
Could you please delineate EXACLTY what SA and/or the Administration has done wrong, outside of come to the Senate meetings and said, "There's a new Sheriff in town and he isn't going to take any of your newsline-making, student-robbing, university reputation-destroying bullshit"?
So far I've heard ONE legitimate complaint... that SA outsourced the elections process and student information was POSSIBLY at risk, although to date nobody has come forward and said that their personal information has been compromised, right? So at this point, we're making mountains out of molehills.
"imitate the parking of traditional universities"
you mean 'lack of parking'? UF, a 'traditional university' by anyone's barometer, has very few places to park. There you have to take buses to get anywhere. We actually HAVE places to park, they're just not close enough to the thick of campus to make your life a constant vacation. It's an architectural/urban planning blunder from the very beginning: they built all the buildings in the middle and the parking around it. Plus, there is a total of one road that KINDA runs through the middle of FAU.
However, if you can't park in the UC/SU parking lot, you can still park across the street by the Burrow. It's a short distance from the UC.
Besides, you can get anywhere on campus in twenty minutes.
"appeal to students seeking a traditional (not commuter) college experience"
This I agree with. And that's what they're trying to do. It's an expensive process, something I'm sure SG understands. It's going to be at least 10 years before we have all the facilities we want to build (wellness center, stadium, more apartments, Greek housing).
It's a difficult mission as well because, okay, to wipe out the 'commuter' mentality we must not only build more housing on campus but also severely constrict how far people can live away from campus and attend here. Delray, sure, Boynton, no; opposite direction, Coral Gables, fine, Miami, no. However, since that conflicts with the state-mandated goal of "ensuring equal access to higher education" (our Archilles Heel), it's not likely to happen.
But we're lucky in a way because, since Boca is rising in price (or at least, that's what everyone keeps claiming), FAU can take advantage of that and build on-campus housing out the wazoo, getting 5k people to live here. That will help a LOT. The fact that we're hoping to have 5000 people living here on campus by Fall 2010 will definitely help us.
But the housing on campus needs to be significantly cheaper than off-campus housing or it's not going to work. No one is going to elect to live in the square box apartments with no pets and roommates they can't choose when they could have all that and more (like a leisure pool and jacuzzi) off-campus for $100 more/month.
"limit the 'Life Long Learning' (aka geriatric conventions) that take up valuable space in the Student Union and elsewhere on campus"
I'd like to see this too but I really don't see this happening. I don't know if FAU makes any money off these people, but it definitely looks good to certain important people the university is trying to impress.
But it's just like I really don't see them building a resident-only cafeteria somewhere between the Breezeway Cafe and the UC Cafe. That's ridiculous on so many levels and there are better places to build dining (north end of campus, over by the Student Apartments...)
"To the student (Mike) that is afraid of "outing" themselves for fear that SGA might retaliate against their club financially I say, to remain hidden in order to get more money is cowardness at its worst."
I'm glad things went well for your club. It didn't go so well (understatement) for our club last time we complained. But these things happen. We're not going to be bitter but we are going to be realistic in the future.
This comment has been removed by the author.
I challenge the accusation that the Student Budget Committee (SBC)reduced funding for clubs that complain.
This is simply not true. Most clubs that were not funded last year simply didn't show up to present their budget.
Others that received zero or significantly less funding were found to have violated the rules for A&S funding or failed to prove a real financial need.
I can remember only one club that had demonstrated financial need and was active but received no funding. That club was the film club.
The budget committee had doubts that it could continue as a going concern after its presentation in front of the committee. An additional issue was the SBC's reluctance to fund high dollar value items to a club.
Many clubs saw funding reductions due to weak budget proposals and our decision to reduce the allocation to clubs in order to maintain or increase our commitments to certain agencies and the University Center (now Student Union).
Since the beginning of this year more than $37,000 has been added to the club accounts from the contingency, SG programs, or club conference accounts.
The bottom line is clubs have received a great deal of support this year.
Under the COSO clubs will find themselves having to adhere to much more stringent requirements for funding than the SBC has ever imposed.
COSO brings a new technique for budget allocation. I don't think its terrible but adds more stress to the club leaders. If dealing with Jose in sga's controller office, was not stressful enough. Personally, I think the club budgets are too difficult to spend. I can see most clubs with a good portion of their funds still in their account. Not because they don't want to spend it, but because Jose scares the leaders away in paperwork.
as far as I know, all the student socials are stored in the registar's office and that is the database we used for voting. I am not talking about fully integrating student numbers into every facet of university organization, I am simply talking about removing the most popular facets which currently use the ss#'s.
Don't call people idiots if you can not comprehend what they are saying in the context of the discussion.
fine. i wont call you an idiot when you realize you have no idea what you are talking about, and admit that you have no idea how long something like that would take, since you don't know what kind of systems they are using.
people like you who spout off random numbers out of their ass about complex computing systems that they dont know anything about are the ones that IT staff cant stand.
They could be using AS/300 mainframes that have really strict access controls, or it could be a windows xp box with a MS SQL database, or it could be an off campus box like the Florida Datacenter which holds all our information.
you dont know. i dont know. so stop saying it would be easy, especially when if the university is going to take the time to change one system, they are going to damn well change it for all.
and btw, last year we got to use our myfau credentials, which was the best system ever..
i dont know why Student Affairs got lazy.
In response to Hallenstein:
"I challenge the accusation that the Student Budget Committee (SBC)reduced funding for clubs that complain."
You are right to challenge it and you'd win because that's not what I said. The 'financial part was added by Dan. My exact words were:
"my club runs into all sorts of sudden red tape when we try to do something."
My point was more about getting forms signed, approving bills, etc.
Our club budget went about as well as can be expected, given the commitments that Hallenstein had described.
As an aside:
"COSO brings a new technique for budget allocation. I don't think its terrible but adds more stress to the club leaders. If dealing with Jose in sga's controller office, was not stressful enough. Personally, I think the club budgets are too difficult to spend. I can see most clubs with a good portion of their funds still in their account. Not because they don't want to spend it, but because Jose scares the leaders away in paperwork."
I'm glad we weren't the only ones with this issue. The general atmosphere is one of condescension; you walk in not knowing how to do something and they give you a hard time about it. I just don't see any reason for this. Does anybody else? I understand some people have difficult days complicated by stress and personal issues -- which I'm willing to forgive -- but on a constant basis? I don't want him to be removed, of course, I just want him to be more understanding.
In defense of Jose Lezama I will make a comment:
I know how frustrating the process of spending club money can be. First there are the budget riders that try to keep some organizations from taking advantage of the system. Next there is the documentary support required by the different layers of administration.
Jose has to enforce all of the University and Student Government policies, rules, and procedures. This puts him at odds with students who either don't know the rules or don't want to follow the rules.
Students get upset because a process that was successful in one semester is outdated in another.
Unfortunately, the rules are not etched in stone--they change all the time.
The easiest way to get paperwork through the system is to follow the club manual, to the letter. Club officers must submit the paperwork as far in advance of an event or trip to allow the process to be completed. Taking the SDA approved paperwork and submitting it to the SG Controller's Office is just the beginning of the approval process.
This is the reality of the system. If students do their homework and read the club manual provided by SDA a great deal of frustration can be avoided.
I am pretty understanding with Jose's situation. I would be an angry man if i had to deal with sga shit. The best part about Jose is when he complains about SGA misspending. Next time you visit him, ask for a SGA Beer Koozie (box on top of file cabinet by the door).
i love that hallenstein made up some bullshit defense for jose, when jose has personally talked shit about hallenstein in my presence... with his fresh-off-the-boat butchered english and all.
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