Although the results of the student trustee election have been announced, none of the results for the Student Assembly (SA) election were announced on May 8 as expected.
Informed sources have stated that many of the candidates for the various SA positions are the subject to challenges based upon alleged violations of the election rules.
Given the lack of competition for SA seats, these challenges are particularly noteworthy. Most of the SA seats were uncontested. However, there were three candidates for President and two candidates for Executive Vice President. Under the SA Charter, the candidate with the most votes in these two races gets to hold that office, and the first runner-up gets an at-large seat on the SA. So, in reality, four of the five people running in these races will serve in the SA, with only one candidate being denied any role.
Of course, if a candidate in an uncontested race is disqualified for violating the campaign rules, the candidate will not be seated, even if he had no opponent. Given that the candidates for the new SA represent a wider variety of viewpoints than the current SA members, it is not surprising that there would be attacks on even uncontested SA candidates.
In addition, the student trustee is not allowed to serve as an elected member of the SA or UA. (The student trustees are ex officio members of the SA.) So J.P. Swenson’s unopposed bid for an SA seat will now result in a vacancy, due to his victory in the student-elected trustee election.
Under the SA Charter, vacancies will have to be be filled:
“All vacancies will be filled by seating the highest ranked non-winning candidate in the last election from the same constituency. If the highest ranked non-winning candidate declines, the seat will be offered to the next highest ranked non-winning candidate. If this procedure has been followed and the seat still remains vacant, the SA will solicit candidates from the unrepresented constituency during the first two weeks of the academic term immediately following the declaration of vacancy.”
So, because so many of the seats were unopposed, if an election challenge results in a vacancy, then there will be a new election next September to fill that vacancy.
In past elections, the Office of the Judicial Code Counselor (who was a law student) decided election challenge appeals. Cornell abolished that position in August 2021. However, the current election rules provide that the SA Election Committee decides election challenges, “in conjunction with the Student Assembly Office of Ethics.” This change replaced a trained law student with an untrained undergraduate in interpreting the election rules applicable to each challenge. The current election rules only allow a candidate to ask the Elections Committee and the Office of Ethics to reconsider its decision. The election rules contain no right to appeal such decisions to a different group or officer. Some would argue that Section 6443(9) of the New York State Education Law would apply to the election rules and would require “[a]ccess to at least one level of appeal of a determination.”
The Elections Committee will not know the vote totals for the candidates during its consideration of each challenge. If any challenges are upheld, the vote totals of the disqualified candidates will not be disclosed.
In 2018, the top vote earner for SA President was disqualified because one of his supporters posted a meme on the “Any Person, Any Meme” Facebook group which contained a tiny Cornell seal. This prompted allegations that members of the Elections Committee had been biased. Election Committee members who later claimed to have recused themselves actually participated in the votes on the election challenges, according to reporting by the Cornell Daily Sun.
Originally, the President, Executive Vice President, and two undergraduate University Assembly (UA) members were scheduled to participate in today’s University Assembly meeting to elect new UA officers for 2023-24. Given the delay in deciding those four seats, the UA is expected to delay its leadership elections.
