Editorial: More oversight needed to prevent another election mishap

Students logged on to banweb.pdx.edu at 8 a.m. Monday morning to cast their votes in the student government election and found they could not vote because the Office of Information Technology was not provided with enough information to open polling.

It was just the first in a series of embarrassing miscues that culminated with the postponement of the election by one day.

Not only were the polls not ready, when they finally went live at a little past 9 a.m., about half the candidates running for elected office were missing candidate statements and photos on the ballot. Names were misspelled and the wording of the Green Initiative Fund referendum was wrong. In addition, a link to three ASPSU constitutional revisions was broken, meaning students would have to vote on the amendments without reading them.

Almost 100 votes cast Monday were thrown out and the election was restarted Tuesday. Unfortunately there were still problems. The referendum had the wrong wording for almost two hours in the morning, and at least three candidates still had missing statements or misspelled names.

The absolute mess created by these mistakes is unacceptable, and there is plenty of blame to go around.

Much of the responsibility falls squarely on the shoulders of the Elections Board, a body of five students who receive a monthly stipend paid for by student fee money. They have suffered from weak leadership, unprofessionalism, poor planning and an inability to be organized and show follow through.

Board chair Ingrid Castenella—who received $300 a month—ultimately paid the price, resigning after Monday’s debacle. That someone took the fall is not enough. This must never happen again, period.

That is the responsibility of the ASPSU Executive Staff, which should never have allowed this election to become derailed in the first place.

Candidates have been complaining about problems with the Elections Board for more than a month, and yet it took an incident that directly inconvenienced members of the Executive Staff for them to return their attention where it belongs—this campus.

The fact that student body President Hannah Fisher was at a conference in Washington, D.C., and Vice President Kyle Cady was lobbying in Salem when the problems first manifested Monday is simply indicative of the lack of attention and oversight given to the board since its formation.

No matter their engagements, both Fisher and Cady should have been on campus to ensure the start of the election went smoothly. Their absence Monday is inexcusable. 

While Cady should be commended for ably stepping in on Monday and dealing with the litany of problems, the truth is the situation could have been avoided if he had just stepped in a month ago. 

The ire of many candidates over the situation would feel far less dubious if they had invested more time and energy into campaigning, however that just is not the case this year.

What needs to happen now is simple: Candidates must use the extra days provided by the mistakes of others to campaign hard, rally support and make sure they get as many students to vote as possible.

Whoever wins the presidency must bear in mind that they alone can prevent an election disaster from happening again, by appointing competent students to the Elections Board and providing enough oversight and support to ensure their success.