Spring SGA election contested

This past April, the Student Government Association election for the position of class of 2010 president was contested on grounds of voter coercion and subsequently won by Michael Cass-Antony '10 over incumbent class president Mia Guajardo '10.

Before elections, Cass-Antony and Guajardo attended a mandatory information meeting on SGA election policy and, by running in the election, agreed to that policy. Elections began Wednesday, April 22 and ended Friday, April 24. Voting was conduced online and at the SGA office, on the 2nd floor of Case Center.

On April 22, the first day of elections, Guajardo was in the SGA office distributing green water bottles, paid for by the Inter-Class Council, to members of the class of 2010. Guajardo claims she followed the advice of Alyssa Chrobuck '09, former VP of communications, to remind the student body to "remember to vote."

Cass-Antony, while walking through Case Center the same day, sighted Guajardo distributing water bottles.

"I started to get people coming up to me telling me that Mia was in the voting booth [SGA office] giving out water bottles telling everyone to 'vote for Mia,'" Cass-Antony said.

According to the SGA's Elections Policies & Procedures from the 2008-2009 academic year, "When voters are at a 'polling place' or are voting at a personal computer, any coercion of those voters to vote for certain candidate will be grounds for disqualification." Guajardo would violate election policy if she indeed told students to "vote for me."

Cass-Antony contacted Jackie Shydlowski '09, former SGA president, and had Shydlowski help remove Guajardo from Case Center.

The following day, April 23, Guajardo was again in Case Center distributing water bottles to members of her class.

On Friday April 24, elections ended at noon, with a vote count of 102 for Guajardo to 88 for Cass-Antony, meaning Cass-Antony would lose by 14 votes. Cass-Antony, after losing, exercised his right to contest the election on grounds that Guajardo committed voter coercion by telling voters at the polling place to "vote for me."

The Executive Board, consisting of former SGA president Shydlowski, along with all class presidents (excluding Guajardo), and two senators, met on April 25 to discuss Cass-Antony's contestation. Shydlowski denied hearing of personal testimonies or peer affidavits supporting either Guajardo or Cass-Antony. The Executive Board tied in a decision on April 25, reconvened on April 26, and voted to rerun the election. The following day, April 27, Guajardo appealed the Executive Board's decision on advice from Shydlowski.

"I talked to Jackie [Shydlowski] and she said, 'You didn't do anything wrong, we all know that, I think we should appeal it. What's the worst that could happen?'" Guajardo said. "She wasn't really allowed to discuss the committee with me."

After Guajardo's appeal, Shydlowski created an a new ad hoc committee on April 29, consisting of SGA members who apparently held no biases toward either candidate. Shydlowsi, instead of chairing the new ad hoc committee herself, elected current SGA Raina Bretan '10 to run the committee, citing personal conflicts.

"Shydlowski should have chaired that," Bretan said. "I think that she had a little personal conflict, I know that she had been counseling Mia [Guajardo] in some ways… Jackie did try her best to make sure that the people who were on that ad hoc committee were as unconnected as they could be."

Before the ad hoc committee met, Shydlowski suggested Bretan entertain, by vote, peer affidavits to ensure a thorough decision. The committee voted unanimously to hear the affidavits.

"In the committee, people decided there was an overwhelming amount of evidence: really several e-mails circulated by members of the Skidmore community that confirmed Mia did, in fact, say, 'Vote for Mia.'"

Bretan motioned in the new ad hoc committee to hear peer affidavits of students claiming they heard Guajardo say "vote for me" in Case Center during election hours in a violation of SGA election policy. Approximately ten peer affidavits were heard.

"After a lot of discussion, the committee came up with this: if more than this many people confirm that this is what they heard, then that's clearly a violation," Bretan said.

Guajardo was disqualified on grounds of voter coercion on April 29, making Cass-Antony president of the class of 2010 by default.

At the start of classes for the fall semester, Cass-Antony assumed his role as the president of the class of 2010. He reserved sympathy for Guajardo.

"I have nothing against Mia," Cass-Antony said. "She would have been a great senior class president and she did a great job as junior class president. It's just a shame the way things went down."

Cass-Antony has already planned the popular Oktoberfest with live music, a comedy festival and a carnival.

"I do have confidence in Mike's ability to do a good job this year," Bretan said. "He's already written e-mails to his class and I think he's gotten some good feedback this year."

Guajardo is still deeply upset with SGA's decision to disqualify her from elections and was bothered by what she perceived was unclear SGA election policy.

"The election proceedings are very ambiguous, it wasn't exactly clear what could have been done in the [initial] appeal, if disqualification was an option or not," Guajardo said.

SGA President Bretan also commented on convoluted election policy.

"We want to make sure this is more clear-cut in the future if something like this happens," Bretan said. "This really was the first time that this kind of a thing happened."