Although online voting in student government elections closed on Nov. 19, the Michigan Student Assembly has yet to publicize a list of names of its winning candidates. As of 8 p.m. yesterday, the voting website, vote.www.umich.edu, said “the results are being tallied” even though the final results were in fact known as early as the Sunday before Thanksgiving.
MSA Vice President Anita Leung, an Engineering senior, said, “It never occurred to us to put it on the website.” Leung said the omission was unintended and that in future years MSA will post results on its website as soon as they become available.
A complete list of the newly elected MSA representatives can be found on The Michigan Daily’s website, at www.michigandaily.com. Students can also call MSA at 763-3241 to receive a list of candidates.
MSA Rules and Elections Committee Chair Russ Garber, an LSA junior, said no one would read the results even if they had been posted on the website.
Rackham student Darren Easton, an MSA representative, said the assembly should publish a list of successful candidates in some fashion, but added that the Daily should publish the results. “I’m kind of a neophyte to all this electronic stuff — I’m a paper and pencil kind of guy,” he said.
In years past, the Daily has published how many candidates get elected in student government races, but has not typically published all the names of winning candidates.
For the past several years MSA had counted on student “blog” websites to publish results, said former MSA Vice President Jenny Nathan, an LSA senior.
LSA freshman Ben Kalayjian, who voted in the elections, was critical of the assembly. “I don’t think they had any bad intentions, but on the other hand, what’s the point of voting if they won’t tell us who won?” he said.
The winning candidates were informed privately via e-mail.