Dahlgren on SFC, curing flawed election results

After a week of confusion over election results for the SFC liaison race, Petter Dahlgren was validated by the ASPSU Elections Board Friday as the actual winner of a SFC seat after the board said Yazmin Estevez won five days earlier.

The Elections Board counted the number of individual votes cast for each candidate, and found that students elected Dahlgren, not Estevez, to the Student Fee Committee. The Vanguard reported that the SFC voting system was flawed a day after the board announced the winners, causing the board to reconsider the SFC liaison results.

The board said the elections snafu was a result of a built-in default in the online election software, which weighted votes in the SFC liaison ballot portion instead of asking just for single votes for candidates. All other positions were elected correctly.

Dahlgren had the second most votes cast for him out of any SFC candidate during the ASPSU elections two weeks ago, making him one of the six students who should have been elected to the SFC. Instead, the Elections Board validated Estevez on April 28 because the board calculated the results of the race by weighting each vote.

Dahlgren said he is very happy that he will now serve on the SFC after previously being told he was not elected, but thinks it never should have gotten to this point.

“This is what they should have done in the first place, gone by the numbers,” he said about the e-board’s decision.

When voting, students were asked to rank candidates in order of preference. First place preferences were given six points and the sixth preference received one point.

Estevez had a greater number of high preference votes than Dahlgren, which made the board think she beat him for the spot, but students cast fewer total votes for her. The ASPSU constitution does not allow weighted voting, so the board reversed their earlier decision and appointed Dahlgren to the SFC.

The Student Fee Committee allocates more than $12 million in student fees to over 150 student groups, including athletics and the Vanguard. The committee is comprised of eight members: six liaisons and the chair are elected by greatest number of single votes, while the ASPSU president appoints one liaison.

The weighted voting system was a take on instant run-off voting, which can be used in the ASPSU elections when there are three or more candidates in the running for a single position. In this case, eight candidates were running for six spots, so instant run-off voting cannot be used.

Elections Board Chair Kyle Curtis said the board was aware that the ballot was flawed before the election took place, but could not get in touch with ASPSU Webmaster John Brown before the ballot went online Sunday, April 20. Brown helped the board set up the online voting system.

Curtis said it was an accident that the board approved the unconstitutional results. Board members said they did not give that portion of results a close enough look.

“We shouldn’t have certified them,” Curtis said.

Friday’s decision could still be contested by Estevez and taken to the Judicial Board, the highest body in student government, but she said she is unsure if she will go to that length.

After they put off a decision on April 30, the board consulted with Brown, who tallied the results again and counted every time students voted for each candidate, proving that Dahlgren should be on the committee.

Estevez feels the board’s decision to put Dahlgren on the SFC was unfair, because students chose her based on the weighted voting system, which they were told to use on the ballot. Whatever she does, she said, she will continue to serve on student government in some function, but added, “I really want the position and I really worked hard for it.”