By Jonathan Gray
The SGA Supreme Court came under fire March 28 at a student forum in Strickler Hall. The forum was called to discuss the recent SGA elections, in which there has been controversy surrounding the election process of procedures.
James Sye, NAACP Chapter President, opened the meeting with an overview of the problems he had seen so far in the elections.
Some of the problems he pointed out were: the election results were announced three different times, some polls opened early and closed late, there was an extra poll in the nursing school and an admission by Chief Justice Shawn Cantley that the election process was flawed from the beginning [this is denied in an opinion posted on the Supreme Court’s website].
Sye continued, calling the elections “a travesty and highly unfair to students of all colors.”
He said: “We will not be disenfranchised from our own elections” and added that the process made ” a mockery out of elections.”
Sye concluded by saying this is “not a black and white issue, it’s an issue of right and wrong.”
The remainder of the forum was run by Stacy Brooks, who is the current SGA Executive Vice President.
Brooks pointed out specifics of many of the problems that Sye had outlined earlier. Topping Brooks’ list was a contract signed between the four presidential candidates and two Supreme Court justices agreeing to throw out the votes at the nursing school because of an extra polling area being set up without consent of all candidates.
There are two problems with this, according to Brooks. First, a decision was made by the court with only two justices present and candidates such as Chris Johnson, Chakeia Manley and Dave Kaelin, who all ran independent of a slate, were not represented in the contract.
Brooks also pointed out that some polling sites were left open longer than their scheduled times, while others were open for a shorter amount of time.
Specifically, Brooks pointed out the Business School, which, according to Brooks, was left open for three hours longer than its scheduled times.
He also pointed out that the results of the election for Academic Vice President were announced three times, changing Chris Johnson’s status each time.
Because of this problem, at the time of the meeting, there was a scheduled “run-off reelection” between the three candidates for Academic VP. This was ordered out of fairness to all candidates.
The meeting offered students a chance to voice their concerns over the election. The crowd seemed to unanimously agree that the procedure of the election was flawed, but was divided on whether there should be another election or if the results should be accepted and the newly elected officials should find ways to prevent this from happening again.
In a decision available on the Supreme Court’s website, the court decided to hand over any more decisions surrounding the election to the senate.
Because of this decision, a short meeting of all senators present was called after the student forum.
One purpose of the meeting was to decide if the scheduled “run-off reelection” should take place on April 1 or not.
After the informal meeting, in which no decision was made, Brooks, whose position as Executive VP provides that he runs senate meetings, said of the senate’s indecision that “some of the members of the senate wanted to hold up the process from happening.”
Despite the indecision, the three candidates for Academic VP signed an agreement that they would not campaign in any way for the April 1 “run-off re-election” and not accept any results that would come from it if it were to take place.
Sye said: “They’re trying to stop democracy from going on.”
