The Judicial Board yesterday at the Student Government Association senate meeting officially read its report concerning the allegations against Jana Stewart, English education senior from Schriever, brought forth by SGA Arts and Sciences senator Heba Algazzar concerning the Homecoming elections.
The Judicial Board voted 3-0 that: Stewart is guilty of three major infractions and one minor violation of the Election Code; Stewart’s actions warrant discipline and she should be removed from the Homecoming court.
Concerning the infractions and violation, Stewart claimed that the complaints against her and procedures for charging her were not legally filed in accordance with the Election Code.
The Judicial Board, however, found that “the Election Code Procedure for election infractions was not violated.” According to the Judicial Board’s interpretation, the polls officially closed on Oct. 23, not Oct. 16 as Stewart indicated. According to Judicial Board member Darren Poree, who abstained from voting, the board chose to view the elections as one entire election and not two separate ones since students enter the first election hoping to become either the king or queen, not just a member of the Homecoming Court.
Stewart disagrees with the Judicial Board, saying they did not adhere to the Election Code. She claimed there were actually two separate elections. The votes from the first polls were not carried over to the second one. “Azadeh publicly announced the results of the first election on the Internet after the polls were closed. The polls were then reopened for the second election,” she said. “Also, not everyone goes into the election with the intention of being king or queen, some just would like the honor.”
Stewart also claimed she had no knowledge of the election results before public announcements were made. During the elections, Tom Bonvillain, director of academic computing, called SGA president Jaret Hubbell during the preliminary voting to tell him how many students had voted. Stewart then called Bonvillain on that Wednesday to request an updated number for the Student Senate.
The Judicial Board claims that only they are authorized to have access to any final numbers or results concerning any aspect of the election. The Board stated that “it was out of Stewart’s jurisdiction to have access to the number of people who voted, it was out of Stewart’s authority to publicly announce the total number of students who voted and since Stewart was considered a candidate in the elections and has worked as a poll worker in previous elections, she should have known from pervious experiences, especially as SGA vice president, that no one is allowed to have access to the total number of people who voted during the election.”
Another issue concerned Stewart’s argument for allowing students to vote in her office. The Judicial Board found that “it was a violation for Stewart to bring students into her SGA office to vote, and it was a violation for students to vote because it was equivalent to acting as a poll worker.” According to the Judicial Board, Stewart failed to comply with election committee warnings of minor violations. This incident occurred when SGA secretary Elaine Musso approached Stewart and told her letting students vote in her office was wrong. The Judicial Board claimed they found that Stewart ignored this warning when she turned on a second computer outside of her office for voting. Stewart disagrees and said that she turned on the computer not knowing that another student was going to vote.
Also included in the Judicial Board’s report was Stewart’s statement that “she never owned a copy of the Election Code, and that she is not familiar with the contents of the Election Code.” The Judicial Board found that because Stewart has been a member of the senate since the fall of 2001, she should have known the code and could have obtained a copy of the code at any time.
Stewart agrees that she has access to the Election Code easier than most students as SGA vice president, but since she was acting only as a student and not an SGA official on the Homecoming court, she believes the Judicial Board did not have the authority to disqualify her from the court.
“I think myself and every single Homecoming nominee should have been informed about the Election Code and informed that we were considered candidates,” she said. “If we were considered candidates, then we must attend a meeting where the Judicial Board distributes and explains the Election Code to us. They cannot hold any one of us responsible for adhering to the Election Code.”
According to Stewart, in the SGA Constitution, Article V, the Judicial Branch has the authority to “be responsible for the machines of these elections, tabulating the results of all elections.”
According to Eugene Dial, vice president for student affairs, the next step will bring Stewart and the Judicial Board together to discuss and form an informal resolution. If the Judicial Board offers an opinion, and it is unsatisfactory to Stewart, she may write a letter to Dial requesting another appeal; he would then make a final decision on the issue.
If the resolution is still unsatisfactory for Stewart, she may then appeal to the president’s cabinet. According to members of the Judicial Board, the issue still has not been resolved.