Student Government presidential candidate Andrew MacCracken's name did not appear on undergraduate students' online ballots for a period of seven minutes Tuesday morning, while students in some residence halls were initially not able to vote for Residence Hall Association offices.
Jared Dashoff, vice chair of the SG Board of Elections and chair of the RHA Board of Elections, said he found the problem around 9:15 a.m. Tuesday when he was filling out his own ballot. He then asked his roommate to check his own ballot and found the same problem. At that time he did not see any of the RHA offices listed. Dashoff, a Nebraska Hall resident, contacted RHA Adviser Leah Kreimer and determined it was a problem affecting the ballots for all of that hall's residents. Around the same time, residents of Tenley campus residence halls were also contacting Dashoff to inform him they were not seeing RHA offices on their ballots.
After some investigation, the Office of Information Technology determined that a coding problem was preventing campus residents from seeing the offices on their ballots and began working to fix the problem, Dashoff said.
He originally estimated MacCracken's name had disappeared from the ballot for a period of between 10-to-15 minutes, but later revised that estimate to seven minutes in a subsequent interview with The Eagle. Someone called in the problem and OIT quickly fixed the presidential ballot.
Earlier that afternoon, MacCracken said he thought his name might have been off the ballot for as long as 30 minutes.
"This is a serious matter," MacCracken said. "We had issues with technology last fall. Looking at the big picture, this is something that is really unacceptable and shouldn't happen again. It's becoming less of a mistake or an accident than of a chronic condition that seems to be coming back."
MacCracken said he received a phone call from Student Activities Tuesday evening telling him the ballot mix-up affected about five voters.
"If it comes down to it, that this could be a factor that decides it [the election]," he said. "I've been reassured that we do have the ability to go back and find who logged on and who attempted to complete a ballot during that time frame and shoot them an e-mail with a new ballot."
An entirely new election is unlikely, according to Dashoff.
"Everybody that we know is affected has been contacted and their ballots have been re-started or finished off depending on what the problem was," he said. "I don't see there being an issue that goes that far to need a complete new election."
Nebraska Hall residents were able to vote for RHA by 10:30 a.m. Tuesday, while all Tenley campus residents were able to vote for RHA offices by 5 p.m., Dashoff said.
If anyone was filling out a ballot and was not able to vote for MacCracken during that period of time, they should e-mail the BOE at boe@ausg.org. If a resident does not see RHA offices on his ballot, he should e-mail jared@aurha.org.
You can reach these staff writers at news@theeagleonline.com.
Updated on 4/1 at 5:00 a.m.
