Two weeks ago, Student Body President Tiffany Weimar decided to call off and reschedule the fall election after realizing the registrar’s office accidentally screwed it up.
“I felt the best thing, instead of all the confusion it was causing, was to start fresh and make sure the data we’ve received from the registrar’s office was legitimate,” Weimar said.

Buried at the bottom of the Student Government election rules is one that allows her to do that. It’s meant for handling “threats of natural disaster, acts of God” and “catastrophic technical failure” among other things — the so-called election contingency plan. And the plan is, basically, “do over.”

SG leaders realized there was a problem on Sept. 15, the first day of the original election: They were receiving a number of voter complaints, ranging from not being able to vote to being able to vote twice. In some cases, even students who had already graduated were able to vote. So SG invalidated the votes and rescheduled the election for Sept. 29 and 30.

But the cause wasn’t a “threat of natural disaster” or an “act of God,” at least not according to Weimar.
“Pretty much it was an honest mistake that the registrar’s office made. They had inadvertently sent the wrong list of students,” she said the morning after the election was cut short. “We caught the mistake, and that’s the important thing.”

The registrar’s office, which many students only visit during the first week of classes, handles more than the hectic drop/add period. They also maintain the database of more than 28,000 students used to determine voter eligibility in student elections. The problem is, they sent the wrong list — one from the previous academic year.

Registrar Harry Demik, who manages the office, could not be reached for comment.

The registrar’s mix-up was puzzled out by Interim SG Director Heather Bishara, who said it was “a human error” and described how she hopes to prevent similar problems next time.
“What I’ve learned from the situation is there are human errors in this process. For future elections, there are some tests I can do with the data,” Bishara said, describing how she would look for the names of people who had graduated and check for other intuitive discrepancies.

Bishara alluded to the fact that the election timeline might have been partially to blame, too.
“The way our elections are, it’s right at the same point as the drop/add period when they need to be able to get us that list,” Bishara said. “I don’t know what else happens. I know some students have talked to me about where elections should fall.”

This time last year, SG leaders agreed the election timeline was “too tight,” but all those people graduated or left without making the change. Now, the people in leadership have a different perspective.

New Election Chair Freddy Moldt, a graduate student hired by President Weimar fewer than two weeks before the election, said the timeline is fine how it is.
“I think the timeline fits the semester all right and everything’s been accommodated. Everything’s been rearranged appropriately,” Moldt said. When asked if he saw any problems with the timeline as-is in the future, he said the same thing.
“No, the timeline now — as far as we know — is good,” Moldt said.

Boca House Representative Boris Bastidas, who is up for re-election, disagreed.
“It’s early. I think looking at how hectic things are on campus in general and that freshmen are just getting situated, we should make sure that the fall election is later. I think it should be in October,” Bastidas said.

But Bastidas had other concerns about the election besides the timeline.
“I’ve been talking about election reform since the process started,” he said, raising concerns about advertising, uncompetitive elections, and even the possibility of vote bribes.
“Only half of the candidates showed up to what was supposed to be an event where the candidates met the students, and there were no students. So we ended up talking about ourselves to a bunch of other candidates,” Bastidas said. He also noted that advertisement was “almost non-existent,” citing a few flyers advertising the election in the Breezeway, which the UP discovered had a flaw: a typo in the Web address where students should vote.

The flyers told students to log on to “www.myfau.edu” instead of the correct address, myfau.fau.edu. They were removed after the initial election dates and after a week were replaced with corrected flyers. An announcement also went out last Friday afternoon reminding students to vote.

Moldt, who was hired by President Weimar partially on the basis of his marketing experience, said he was “focusing on some new strategies.”

Asked what kind of strategies — a week before the rescheduled election — Moldt responded: “It’s still too early to tell, but nothing worth mentioning.”

Heather Bishara suggested election reform might most effectively come from regular students, rather than the leadership alone.
“It’s up to the students, and I think we have an opportunity when we have the Constitutional Convention to look at the process and see what works and what doesn’t,” Bishara said.

The convention, a long process outlined in the current SG constitution, will take place starting in January. A minimum of 20 students hand-picked by SG leaders will also be involved in discussing and changing the rules that govern all of Student Government, including the election process. However, any students who volunteer will also be involved in the decision-making process.

The convention will mark the first chance students have to participate in fundamentally reshaping Student Government since February 2007.