Election Vindicated

Special election appealed, Knappen is WSA president

Nate Knappen and Janine Putnam are now the president and vice-president elect of the Western Student Association, ending a six-week controversy.

On Thursday, April 23, the Judicial Committee of the WSA held a public hearing to hear the Knappen / Putnam campaign’s appeal of the Election Control Board’s decision that the results of the special election did not yield a winner.

What caused the problem?

The JC found that there was a misunderstanding of the percentage of the popular vote that made up a victory. In the special election, it was assumed that it was 51 percent of the popular vote. The JC ruled that it was really 50 percent plus one vote.

Fools.

(Actually, that still isn't quite right. A majority is greater than 50%. If there are three voters, then 50% + 1 is 2.5 votes, but > 50% is > 1.5 votes = 2 votes assuming votes are whole numbers.)

The peculiar 2009 election began after the ECB contested the original election results on March 20 after allegations surfaced that the Knappen / Putnam campaign violated terms of the Student Election Code. The JC found Knappen / Putnam campaign guilty.

In the first election, Knappen / Putnam received 1,200 votes, or 60 percent, Nordstrand / Dunsmore got 38 percent with 800 votes, and 40 votes were write in candidates making two percent.

Those results were nullified and the JC scheduled a special election to take place from April 13-15. The election was open to new candidates and Sasha Acker and Chris Caloia joined the race. 1,225 students voted, of which Knappen / Putnam received 614 votes, Nordstrand / Dunsmore 388 votes, and Acker / Caloia 209 votes.

According the JC report, four write-in candidates were eliminated, giving Knappen a 50.29 percent margin. But a victory, at the time, was considered to be 51 percent.

The duty to elect the president was then sent to the senate, as stated in the constitution, and following hours of debate, Nordstrand / Dunsmore was elected with 21 of the 36 votes, the other 15 going to Knappen/Putnam. Nordstrand and Dunsmore were immediately sworn in as president and vice president.

“The concept that minimum threshold for majority vote was 51 percent, arose extraneously per miscommunication of the procedures of the Special Election,” reads the same JC report.

“It was unnecessary and an error because of the time crunch,” former justice Alexander Smith said. “We felt we had to have a president elected.”Smith added that the 51 percent victory margin came about through miscommunication with the ECB.

“The Election Control Board acted in good faith, but alas in error, in ruling the Special Election failed to produce majority-threshold result, based on a misunderstanding that the minimum threshold for majority vote was 51percent,” reads the JC report.

“No one wants to admit where the number came from,” Freye said, adding that he never believed the majority was 51 percent, but went along with what the JC dictated.

“There was serious miscommunication,” Freye said, “but I wouldn’t go so far as say it was a misunderstanding.”

Freye went on to say that he probably should have submitted his disagreement to the JC in writing.

“Mistakes were made, there were oversights, but why did it take him [Knappen] losing to take issue with the 51 percent?” he asked. “This whole situation is very detrimental to WSA.”

Nate Knappen said he and Putnam submitted their contention the day after the election, on April 17.

For now, at least, it looks like things are going to settle down for the WSA.

Smith said that the J.C. did everything they could to make sure there was nothing to be appealed in their ruling. “Technically, Stacy and Courtney have a window to appeal,” Smith said. “Those appeals would be circular and lack merit.”

While Knappen may be president-elect, there is no census on who is actually the president of WSA now.

“I assume I am kind of the acting president,” Andrew Ladd said, speaker of the senate.

There is really little happening as to official WSA business over the summer. “There really is no function for the president [until the fall],” Smith said.

For the candidates, the first election, then re-election, one president and then another has been a roller coaster.

“For us, it is unfortunate,” Nordstrand said. “We followed the process and didn’t do anything wrong along the way. Whoever leads WSA has a lot to do. Good luck.”

Knappen said the first thing he will do as president is to revise the bylaws of the WSA to weed out any ambiguities.

“[The election] shows that WSA is willing to admit mistakes and go about things in the right way,” Knappen said. “We hope students feel welcome to voicing their concerns with us.”

The question that remains is how WSA will be viewed by students who left in the spring thinking Nordstrand was their president, and coming back in the fall to see Knappen.

“It looks bad on our part to do it retroactively,” Ladd said. He wants everyone to know that everything happened the way it was laid out. “Everything happened the way it should have and as transparent as possible.”

“We’re not professional politicians,” he added. “We are rolling with it and doing the best we can.”
Knappen will be sworn in as president at a special assembly of WSA in Lansing, as part of WMU Day at the Capitol on May 27.

The WSA is still a joke, but at least the election winners actually won.