UC Decision Pending Amid Claims of Fraud

CORRECTION APPENDED

After a two and a half hour Undergraduate Council Executive Board meeting yesterday, there is still no UC president-elect. But a vote that could make John F. Bowman ’11 the next Council president is set to take place at today’s UC General meeting.

During yesterday’s meeting, Council members worked to put an end to the confusion and to understand why the seven person Election Commission—just minutes away from announcing the next Council president—voted to decertify election results Thursday night out of fear of voting irregularities.

Four EC members, as well as one of the three EC members who resigned last Thursday, attended last night’s public meeting and fielded pointed questions about the decision.

EC member Phillip J. Morris ’12 clarified the majority’s decision, explaining that after speaking with Brad A. Seiler ’10, the EC chair who resigned early Friday morning in protest of the decertification vote, Morris said he thought it was possible that election results had been tampered with.

“I remember asking the question ‘Can we certify 100 percent that no one has tampered with the election,’” said EC member Dennis M. Mwaura ’12. “And Brad said ‘No, we can never be 100 percent sure.’”

The three EC members who were present agreed they did not have any reason to believe votes had been changed but thought that since only Seiler had been able to monitor voting at the time and that no records existed that would allow EC members to review the process, there was no way of knowing if the results were tampered with.

“I’m from Kenya, I know what forged elections mean,” said Mwaura.

Besides Seiler, a Computer Science concentrator who has worked at Google, none of the remaining UC members considered themselves particularly knowledgeable about electronic vote tampering.

FAS IT may be able to provide more definitive information about whether anyone accessed the voting software inappropriately soon, according to Assistant Dean of Harvard College for Student Life Susan Marine, who attended yesterday’s Executive Board meeting and said that Jay Carter, FAS IT’s director of information security, would search for signs of improper access today.

At the end of yesterday’s Executive Board meeting, members unanimously agreed to put forward legislation during today’s UC General meeting that would allow the UC to certify the election—a power previously reserved for the Executive Board, which consists of the President, Vice President, UC committee chairs, and other Council officers.

Besides the fact-finding portion of the meeting, the Executive Board also discussed their reactions to Thursday night’s controversial e-mail, which was signed by UC Vice President Kia J. McLeod ’10 and implied that Vice Presidential Candidate Eric N. Hysen ’11 could have been involved in voting fraud.

Hysen categorically denied the accusations and supporters of both major UC tickets came to his defense.

McLeod, who was present for the first portion of the meeting and is a member of the Executive Board, left the meeting minutes before her e-mail was discussed—much to the consternation of many present.

Daniel V. Kroop ’10, who worked on the campaign to elect the current President Andrea R. Flores ’10 and McLeod, called it “incredibly disappointing” that she left the meeting.

McLeod’s running mate had similarly harsh words.

“What Kia did does not represent the vision of leadership for the Council,” Flores said of the e-mail.

McLeod denied writing the controversial message in an interview with The Crimson early Friday morning.

But according to former Student Affairs Committee Chair Tamar Holoshitz ’10, who said she contributed to the e-mail, McLeod approved its contents and sent it from the official UC presidential e-mail account.

Legislation will be presented at today’s UC General meeting calling for McLeod’s impeachment on charges related to improper use of the UC president’s official e-mail account.

—Writer Melody Y. Hu can be reached at melodyhu@fas.harvard.edu.

—Writer Eric P. Newcomer can be reached at newcomer@fas.harvard.edu.

CORRECTION

An earlier version of the Nov. 23 news article "UC Decision Pending Amid Claims of Fraud" incorrectly stated that three members of the Undergraduate Council's Election Commission were present at Sunday night's public meeting about the UC's presidential election. In fact, four members of the EC were present at the meeting.