While resolving one debate, this week’s special session of the General Assembly has given rise to several others — framed, for the most part, inside the pale blue rectangles of Facebook threads. Strung amid advertisements for pillow fights and leftover Ethiopian food, angry posts on university pages have voiced concerns about the GA’s outcome and the tense unfurling of the semester’s Student Government elections.

The special session had been called in order to decide whether students on leaves of absence could be permitted to run in student elections. Though the 33-27 vote tally had, at first, gestured towards a clear outcome against the motion, some students raised concerns about the constitutionality of the session and the vote itself, which had been wedged into a 45-second time frame and included one unprecedented procedure.

Initially, the GA had been disputed before it even began; some students asked that the special session not be held, saying it was technically unconstitutional given that the session had been announced only 24 hours in advance.

This dilemma can be traced back to the two official documents that structure Student Government: the Constitution and the Rules and Procedures. The Constitution stipulates that GAs be announced at least 48 hours in advance, while the Rules and Procedures, passed in October 2014, allow for a notification window of only 24 hours.

“We have been announcing GAs within a 24-hour window, or at least 24 hours before, since October 2014, and that’s what we announced this GA for,” said Officer of Communications Olivia Bergen.

Bergen said that, given the urgency of the issue and the discussion it was generating, the Executive Board decided to move ahead with the session. On that day, students packed the GA room, spilling into the hallway outside, and witnessed the taut orchestration of short, volunteered arguments articulated within the breathless timeframes allotted by GA procedure. Along with others who were absent but following a live-stream and casting their votes online, the GA voted for the motion to fail.

Afterwards, however, Bergen had been approached by students who were concerned about some votes that had been cast online. In order for a vote to be counted, it must come from an active participant of the GA, whether that be someone who is following the session, and therefore the debate, in the room, or someone who is watching it unfold via live-stream on Google Hangouts.

While seven separate people had been voting via Google Hangouts during the GA, there were 15 virtual votes in total. This surplus of votes, all sent via email and all voting against the motion, was brought to Bergen’s attention after the GA concluded and the outcome announced. She believed, at first, that the eight extra votes would have to be disqualified and the outcome upended.

“We were confused. It didn’t appear like those votes could count,” said Bergen. For this reason, Bergen said that she and Global Vice President Ben Jance decided to draft an official report.

“We shared it with the Executive Board, said, guys look this over. What do you think about this?” added Bergen. “And it was brought to our attention by one of the Executive Board members that they knew that the eight people … had been in the Marketplace watching on Google Hangout via [a student’s] laptop.”

Until that session, there had been no precedent of students sharing a Google Hangout account to vote.

Bergen and Jance approached the owner of the laptop, senior Suhaib Mohaidat, at around 2 p.m., an hour and a half after the GA ended. He confirmed that the eight voters had been with him watching the live-stream at the time.

“[Mohaidat], who knows all these people — they were friends and had been watching together — went to go collect the signatures from each of the eight people and then submitted it to us,” said Bergen. The signature document attested to the presence of the entire group and was later included in the public report, which revealed the names of all those who voted and the direction of their vote.

The report was met with doubts from students about whether or not those on the shared account could be considered active participants. Given that there had been no on-screen verification of the voters’ presence, some students wondered if their votes should count.

“For me, the concern was only based on a hypothetical scenario,” said junior Maddie Moore who, along with junior Cian Dinan, submitted votes via email that were not counted because they fell outside of the 45-second time frame. “It never crossed my mind that this specific group of votes had been submitted disingenuously. I just realized it was possible. I also submitted two votes via email and nobody in this world had any way of knowing whether Cian was actually present.”

Junior Representative Layan Abu-Yassin had been the one to alert Bergen and Jance of the group Hangout in the first place, and she vouched for the presence of all eight people involved.

“After I walked out of the GA, I went to the Marketplace. Suhaib was there, and he told me that they voted no,” said Abu-Yassin. “I asked him, Were you watching the GA? And the rest of the girls were there; they were all on one laptop.”

Abu-Yassin then relayed this information to Jance and Bergen, who decided the votes could count once they collected signatures.

Yet other students on Facebook had been more vocal about their doubts over the presence of all eight voters in the Marketplace that day. In an open letter on the university’s Student Life Facebook page, sophomore Hind Tantawi, one of the voters, addressed the controversy.

“For all of those who doubt both our presence and active engagement in the emergency GA session,” she wrote. “I would like to clarify that it would have been a marvelous coincidence for each and every one of us from our own e-mail accounts to all have voted in the 45 seconds allotted for voting in the GA had we not been actually watching the live-stream, attentive.”

The 45-second time frame has been a source of some student frustration, as there were many other students who saw their late votes disqualified. According to Bergen, the limit had been established when, in the fall, the Executive Board began thinking of ways to streamline GAs. In previous sessions, members voting this way had never expressed dissatisfaction.

In her post, Tantawi also added that she felt it unfair that the email voters had the direction of their votes published, citing this as a challenge to freedom of expression. Tantawi had not known that her name would be published when she signed the document.

During the special GA, Tantawi, and the names of the other email voters, were also read out loud to confirm that the votes did not overlap with the Google Hangout votes. The in-person vote itself was conducted with raised hands and open eyes, meaning those in the room could see how others had voted.

Bergen also added that multiple members of the shared Hangout had first sent email votes before the 45-second time frame, and the timestamp of these emails all coincided with the moment when Treasurer Yuqi Sun first read aloud the motion, suggesting that the voters had been watching the live-stream together and thought the discussion was over and voting time had begun.

Reflecting on the situation, Bergen said that the decision to count the votes was made in an attempt to make sure student voices were heard.

“This was something that I thought was a very unusual circumstance, and we did the best we could to try and enfranchise people who were apparently participating,” said Bergen.

At the same time, Bergen sees necessity in further clarifying online voting procedure.

“I don’t think that this should happen again, this was very inconsistent,” said Bergen. Whether this means disqualifying email votes, or allowing students anywhere to vote without listening to the GA, Bergen said the conversation revolving around online voting will begin in today’s GA.

“We do have a few weeks left, so we can look into ways we can better follow things and better reform things for the future. [The new Executive Board] will be able to see what discussions are happening,” said Bergen. “It’s enough time to discuss and plan, but also it will allow us to start fresh for next year.”