The Fairfield University Student Association was rocked by a recount last week when the results of the Vice President of Senate and Vice President of Programming races were overturned.
After the initial results were tallied, Jillian Grant, ’05, then the losing candidate for VP of Programming, sent an appeal of the results via e-mail. “At around midnight, I e-mailed Brian [Leverone] to say I was appealing the election,” she said.
According to Election Commissioner Brian Leverone, ’03, a discrepancy in the ballots ordered by FUSA from the town of Fairfield caused the vote totals for both the VP of Senate and VP of Programming to be switched.
In the actual voting machines used, the offices listed from left to right were: FUSA President, VP of Programming, and VP of Senate. However, the tally sheets used by FUSA reversed both VP spots. Because of this, the votes for these positions were incorrectly tabulated.
As a result, instead of Ryan Cantor, ’04 and Jeff Holland, ’04 winning those respective races, Geoff Cook, ’05 and Jillian Grant won.
Roger Auturoi, who works in the office of the Registrar of Voters in Fairfield and helps FUSA set up the voting booths, said that the problem was simply human error.
“Someone read the votes too fast probably looking to get out at a reasonable hour,” Auturoi said. “The machines are fine, it’s a matter of human error.”
After a recount was started at 10:20 a.m. Wednesday, Leverone met with candidates at 11:30 a.m. in the Student Activities Office on the second floor of the Campus Center to tell them the results.
The results of all other races, including the FUSA presidential race, remained the same. The candidates impacted by the recount had mixed reactions.
“Generally, I feel badly,” said Grant, ’05, VP-elect of Programming. “The results were misleading. The reason I raised the appeal was because Kevin [Neubauer] and I ran together and we had a lot of the same supporters.”
Jeff Holland, ’04, who ran against Grant, was gracious in defeat. “A mistake was made and I’m glad that it was fixed,” he said. “I would have felt badly to know that I had a position that I hadn’t rightfully won. I was surprised by the number of votes. I thought it would have been a closer margin.”
Geoff Cook, ’05, now VP-elect of Senate, said he would have preferred the results to be correct in the first place. “I don’t think anyone in there wanted that to happen,” he said. “Everyone wanted to know the truth, but nobody wanted to hear in that fashion. People wanted to hear the truth at 10:30 [Wednesday]. It was a tense environment in there.”
Ryan Cantor, ’04, was reserved in defeat. “I think it’s great that we got the correct results the way students want it to be,” he said. “I’m not bitter or anything, I would just rather it didn’t come out the way it did.”
“I think it was a pretty simple problem,” Cantor added. “The names on the two sheets of paper just didn’t line up right. It could have been caught, it should have been caught, but there’s no one to blame for it.”
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