Internal Politics Of Student Government Elections
Concerns about Student Government transparency and internal relationships have emerged in the days following the election for the fourth Student ...
Nov 30, 2013
Concerns about Student Government transparency and internal relationships have emerged in the days following the election for the fourth Student Government administration.
NYU Abu Dhabi junior Mandy Tan, currently studying abroad at NYU Shanghai, raised concerns about Student Government transparency following the resignation and subsequent candidacy of former Vice President and current Vice President-elect Corey Meyer, a junior. Tan said that she was unaware of both his resignation and of the appointment of junior Robert Haynes as interim vice president. Haynes had previously been the student government representative of the class of 2015.
“Two elected members of the Student Government, who are [supposed] to represent us, resigned without an official statement,” said Tan. “Besides being in the minutes of the [General Assembly], I don't know where else it is found.”
Similar issues of transparency were raised regarding the advising relationship between Meyer and freshman Quan Vuong, who had been the Elections Committee Chair for the recent vote. Vuong has since resigned in order to run for the position of Officer of Student Activities in a recently announced election that will take place from Dec. 3 to Dec. 5.
Reshuffling of positions
The NYUAD Student Government Executive Board announced that they would hold elections for the Spring 2014 Executive Board at the GA on Oct. 27. The elections committee was formed by the Executive Board and presented to the GA on Nov. 10, consisting of Vuong as chair, as well as freshman Joseph Chu and sophomore Abdullah Mohamed.
Meyer resigned from his position as vice president on Nov. 17 in order to run for re-election, which is a requirement according to Article VIII Subsection 1.iv of the Student Government Constitution.
In reality, however, Meyer’s resignation had few practical consequences. Student Government President Leah Reynolds said the Executive Board voted to formally invite Meyer to their meetings, and he continued to attend these while running for office. He also continued his work with various committees that he had been associated with during his term as vice president, including the Faculty Council, the Dining Committee and the Representative Committee for Academic Divisions, for which he is chair.
“The vice president has a certain array of duties, but the biggest one is, shall assist the president, and there’s no reason that someone who is not [the vice president] can’t do that,” said Meyer. “Functionally, I didn’t do anything other than not vote [as a member of the Executive Board].”
When Meyer stepped down from his post, the Executive Board appointed class of 2015 representative Haynes to act as interim vice president. This was presented at the GA on Nov. 24, and there were no objections. Meyer said there was no formal announcement of this change in positions outside of the GA, because it might have appeared to be a form of campaigning.
“I didn’t push for a public announcement [of my resignation and Haynes’ appointment] because I thought it would be a misuse of power,” Meyer said. “I think the design of the resignation [clause in the constitution] is that they don’t want you to use your office to campaign.”
Reynolds said, “We knew that we only had one general assembly left so we decided to nominate and appoint [Haynes as vice president].”
However, she noted, “[The appointment was] really just on paper because as the junior class [representative] with so many people abroad we knew that he didn’t have a lot of responsibilities [in his role as class of 2015 representative].”
Meyer said Haynes was chosen because he was already familiar with the processes of Student Government and what was happening, which was convenient since it was already late in the semester. Meyer and Haynes are roommates.
Haynes will study abroad next spring, when there will be a by-election for a new class of 2015 representative. Until then, Reynolds indicated that there is no stated plan to find an interim junior class representative.
Election Day
By Nov. 12, Vuong and the Elections Board had announced dates for the elections on NYUAD’s Student Life Facebook page. Applications were to be submitted by Nov. 19, and the elections were to be held Nov. 25 and 26.
Though in his first semester at NYUAD, Vuong had already worked on another Elections Board — in the September vote for class representatives.
Yet for Vuong, there were many parts of the elections process that were new and without precedent. For instance, this was the first Student Government election with students campaigning from elsewhere in NYU’s global network, including three from New York and one from London. There were also other technical aspects, such as logistics with streaming the candidate’s forum to NYUAD students abroad.
At many points, Vuong turned to the Executive Board for advice on running the elections. In particular, Vuong reached out to Meyer for tips on elections procedure, and at different points during the election, would send Meyer emails or visit his dorm room to solicit advice.
“When I took over the Elections Board, there wasn’t any specific set of rules,” said Vuong. “So the advice I got from [Meyer] is essentially, when there’s an issue and I’m not entirely sure of what I should do, I get advice from him, such as similarly to [how I would] I get advice from the student government or the student body in general to get an idea or a different perspective on how I should handle that issue. “
When a mass Reply-All email chain went out across the entire NYUAD student body on the evening of Nov. 23 due to an Elections Board error that accidentally copied all the student body’s emails, Vuong was in Meyer’s room.
“[Vuong] needed someone who had knowledge of the constitution and knew the processes, and someone who would kind of liaise between the Executive Board and the Elections Board,” said Meyer. “Quite often he didn’t have complete access to [Reynolds] so he would send questions to me and I would forward these concerns on to sitting Executive Board members. They would in turn address these concerns.”
Meyer said that he acted as a conduit between Vuong and the rest of the Executive Board. He said that on all electronic communications between the two that there were others copied in the emails, and that all advice given to Vuong was based on the rules or precedent.
When asked whether he thought someone else should have been acting as a conduit between the Elections Board and the Executive Board, given that he had resigned from his Executive Board position and was running as a candidate, Meyer indicated that he still felt he was suited for the job.
“There are not a lot of people here who have complete knowledge of the Constitution [who wasn’t] also a candidate,” said Meyer. “Because the election cycle has such a quick turnaround time it’s hard to get complete access to certain current Executive Board members.”
Meyer also said that he was the one who formed the Elections Board and set the rules.
Sophomore Brenda Odhingo was Elections Board chair during the September elections for class representatives. In comparison to her experience as chair, Odhingo said she felt as though the Student Government and Meyer had arranged much more of the elections logistics.
“I preferred more independence from [the Student Government],” she said. “But I know that their intention was in the right place and they wanted to have a good election, so it's not necessarily a negative thing.”
Procedurally, the election had its complications. Vuong indicated that one of the candidates submitted their desire to run in the elections past the Nov. 19 deadline, although he declined to comment on which candidate that was.
The candidate in question was added to the ballot before the candidates were announced on Nov. 22. Vuong said that this was because this individual had provided reasonable justification for submitting their candidacy later. He declined to specify what that justification was.
Vuong indicated that it would be helpful to have more consistent rules laid out for Elections Boards in future elections.
The candidates were announced on Friday, Nov. 22, and the candidate’s forum was held on Sunday, Nov. 24. Candidates that were abroad were included via online video conferencing, and the forum was streamed live over the internet so NYUAD students across the global network could watch and learn about the candidates.
However, the Elections Board decided not to release the recording of the video and post it online for individuals who were unable to watch the forum at the scheduled time. Vuong said that this decision was due to the preference of at least one of the candidates to not have the forum spread online, however there is no available information about which candidate or candidates expressed this preference.
Following this decision there was a witch hunt, Meyer said, to determine which candidate had declined to talk. Meyer said that one of the possible reasons a candidate might not want the forum to stream online was the potentially sensitive information that had been brought up in the forum, and that even video posted privately on the Student Portal could be taken off the internet and saved.
Sophomore Clara Bicalho, current officer of student activities, said sharing the forum would have been beneficial to the student body.
“It could potentially increase voter turnout if people could actually watch it,” she said.
Election took place via an online ballot from Nov. 25 to 26, and results announced the following day included an exact tie for the position of treasurer. The Elections Board sent out an email on Nov. 27 announcing that there will be a runoff election to resolve the tie. The position of officer of student activities will also be on this ballot, since no candidates applied for that position in the Nov. 25 elections.
Fifty-eight percent of the student body took part in the vote, although there is no information on the distribution of those votes for candidates.
The vote had also included a referendum on the creation of a community code to act as a basis for community conduct, as well as the creation of a community council consisting of students who would arbitrate student activities.
At the time of the interview, the results of this referendum had not been announced by the Elections Board. However, Meyer indicated that he knew the numbers of votes for both referendums. The results were later announced by Vuong on the NYUAD Student Life Facebook page, including voting distributions.
The numbers of votes for the candidates are not released, Meyer said, because there had been precedent set in prior elections. He also that releasing vote distributions for these elections had potentially detrimental consequences to the elected candidates that outweighed the utility of releasing this information.
For the upcoming tie-breaker vote, Vuong will no longer be working with the Elections Board. He has stepped down from his position with a stated intent to run for the position of officer of student activities. There was no public announcement made about Vuong’s resignation. However, in an email to the student body from the current Elections Board, Vuong’s name is no longer present.
Since his resignation from his position as chair, Vuong posted the results of the referendums on the NYUAD Student Life Facebook page, indicating that both the community code and community council were approved by the student body.
Candidates for this position will be formally announced following the submission deadline to the Elections Board, now chaired by freshman Joseph Chu, on Dec. 3. Voting will open that same night at midnight via the same online election platform, and run until 11:50 p.m. on Dec. 5.
Correction: A previous version of this article misspelled Clara Bicalho's name. The Gazelle regrets this error.
A previous version of the article incorrectly stated that the candidates' forum had not been recorded. It had been recorded, just not shared online.
Alistair Blacklock is editor-in-chief. Email him at editorial@thegazelle.org.
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