This year's Residence Hall Association (RHA) presidential election first resulted in a run-off between RHA Vice President of Programming and College sophomore Jessica Simon and RHA Publicity Chair and College sophomore Akshay Goswami. But after Simon filed cheating allegations again Goswami, who had received the most votes, the RHA Election Committee found ambiguities in RHA's election policies. The rules state that a candidate may present a challenge within 24 hours after the election but had failed to specify whether the term "election" referred to the run-off or general round. A new general election will take place as a result.
As we wrote in a staff editorial last week regarding the cheating allegations in the SGA presidential election against College junior and SGA President Raj Patel, we feel cheating should not result in a penalty of community service hours but should disqualify a candidate. The current punishment is merely a minor inconvenience, and the Elections Board should impose a "zero-tolerance" policy. The presidents of SGA and RHA have important duties and represent the student body as a whole. Cheating in these elections, therefore, should not simply result in community service hours and should be taken more seriously.
Candidates utilized social media in their campaigns, which resulted in campaign violations in both the SGA and RHA elections, and we at the Wheel feel that this fact further demonstrates a need to reform elections bylaws for these organizations. Of course, we are disappointed in the fact that the candidates cheated at all, but what is even more concerning are the vague clauses that currently exist in election rules for both of these organizations. It is confusing that in the SGA presidential election, Patel received community service hours and won the election. But in the RHA election, Goswami, who had received the most votes, will have to complete community service hours in addition to participating in an entirely new election.
Goswami himself put it best when he told the Wheel, "It makes no sense to me. If you look at SGA, Raj Patel was accused of cheating on the voting day, and he just got community service, and he still got his position. I got five hours of community service in addition to another election, and all I did was make my Facebook group a little earlier." Goswami, as the Wheel reported, was found guilty of violating the rules by creating a Facebook campaign group before the 5 p.m. campaign start time.
While it is unlikely that these Facebook groups and posts would have won either candidate the election, there are certainly lines that need to be drawn, and that's why we recommend that the SGA and RHA election committees revise their own policies and bylaws in order to set a precedent and have clear, specific rules in place pertaining to social media so that there are no unintentional campaign violations in the future.
Of course, we are not saying there should be a ban on social media from election campaigns altogether, but it's essential that such rules specify whether, for example, having a cover photo telling viewers to vote for a candidate is a campaign violation.
Section Three of the SGA Elections Bylaws states: "On the date of the election, no candidate, campaign staffer, nor any other individual excluding the Elections Board will be allowed to encourage individuals to vote by standing near or in any way providing eligible students computers on which to vote" (Editor's Note: See our corrected staff editorial regarding this clause online). But nowhere does it clarify what constitutes campaigning with regard to social media sites. Essentially, when it comes to social media, the rules are unclear and the lines must be drawn somewhere. If candidates are going to allege cheating based on sites like Facebook and Twitter, the SGA bylaws must be updated to include this possibility.
The RHA elections bylaws do list acknowledge social networking sites as an example of campaigning. While this is certainly an improvement over SGA's bylaws, there is still a need for some specificity as to what constitutes a violation. The RHA policies provide in-depth explanations about the rules of placing posters on campus: they must be a certain size, for instance, and they may not be placed "on the outside of a building or any window or outside door." As for online publicity, the policies merely state: "The Elections Board Chair must be notified by candidates regarding any online social networking groups." Perhaps it is time to ensure that "online publicity" receives the same attention in the RHA bylaws that posters and flyers do.
Based on the controversies surrounding this year's student government elections, it is evident that campaign rules must ensure there are no loopholes that could potentially allow a candidate to cheat. If the rules for social media are more clearly defined, we can prevent this from becoming a trend. We feel that beyond disqualifying candidates for cheating, an action that should not be taken lightly, the rules must be updated to reflect the societal transition to social media.
The above staff editorial represents the majority opinion of the Wheel's editorial board.
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