Lower Representatives Announced After Divisive StuCo Election

By Ella Brady, Otto Do and Andrea Luo

The election of Tony Cai, Minseo Kim and Alexa Murat to Student Council (StuCo) as lower representatives followed significant controversy amid the electoral process. 

On Sunday, Oct. 18, StuCo disqualified then-candidate Cai from the election for violating the “spirit” of a ban on grade-wide emails. After StuCo’s official notice to candidates on the mass email ban, Cai sent individual emails to the entire lower class. Due to Cai’s popularity as a candidate, the decision was met with significant backlash from the Class of 2023 and the student body at large. StuCo eventually capitulated to students’ demands, offering a write-in option on the ballot through which Cai was eventually elected.

However, many questioned the legitimacy of the election and expressed skepticism about the constitutionality of a write-in option. This past Sunday, a group of lowers came forward with a proposition to have four lower reps instead of the usual three, considering the unconventional nature of the write-in ballot.

Co-Secretary Phil Horrigan described the framework that the StuCo Executive Board used to disqualify Cai. “We’ve been operating based on the ‘spirit’ of rules and the constitution for months. If you wanted me to define that for you, I could not,” he said. “It seems like we are doing whatever we want to, regardless of precedent, and claiming that it is benefitting the student body. This is evidently not true, just look at all of the pain in the Lower Rep elections.”

According to StuCo Co-President Charlotte Lisa, StuCo first received notice of grade-wide campaign emails at 6:07 p.m. on Oct. 18. Another candidate’s grade-wide emails had resulted in a spam chain, with inappropriate content shared by other members of the lower class. According to StuCo, the ban was aimed at respecting student inboxes as a place of academic correspondence.

At 7:21 p.m. that same evening, StuCo’s Elections Committee Heads Charlie Preston and Georgie Venci informed candidates via email that such actions would result in disqualification. At 12:32 p.m. the next day, Cai sent out individual emails to all lowers, and StuCo Co-Presidents Charlotte Lisa and Senai Robinson ruled to disqualify Cai. The disqualification occurred six hours before the start of the election, scheduled to begin on Oct. 19 at 6:30pm.

Following Cai’s disqualification, complaints flooded the email inboxes of the StuCo Executive Board and Elections Committee Heads. In one of these emails, lower representative candidate Matthew Dame, on behalf of nine other candidates, wrote, “We all interpreted the email warning sent out the same way as Tony did. He was the only one who made the unfortunate decision to act on his convictions and send such an email.”

“I did not violate [the rule] and respected it the same way most candidates did,” Cai said. According to Cai, he believed that StuCo’s ban on grade-wide emails intended to prevent more reply-all chains. Cai said he spent multiple hours sending individual emails with different content to his fellow lowers, thanking returning students for their support last year and extending conversation to new students. 

Cai argued that such behavior should not be deemed equivalent to sending a single grade-wide email. “My classmates deserve a personal connection from their candidate in the middle of the election, and my action was within their framework,” Cai said.

Even after Cai and the Co-Presidents had a conversation discussing the alleged rule violation, Cai’s disqualification was not lifted. “Election regulations are in place to protect the integrity and fairness of the Student Council,” Lisa and Robinson said. 

Cai disagreed with the rationale that email inboxes were a solely academic space. “Beyond the distinction between methods of emailing students, class representative communication is just as important as academic life. Students deserve to have a colorful social life as well,” Cai said.

In response to StuCo’s decision, lowers protested against Cai’s disqualification and created a formal petition for his reinstatement as a lower representative candidate. 173 of 271 lowers signed onto Cai’s social media based petition. 

Responding to lower complaints, StuCo redid the election between Wednesday, Oct. 21 at 6:30pm and Thursday, Oct. 22 at the same time, offering a write-in option on the ballot. The second election resulted in the victory of Cai, Kim and Murat, one write-in candidate and two listed candidates, respectively.

Write-in ballots have not been traditionally used in StuCo elections. “Students do have power, and, as Co-Presidents, our responsibility is to uplift it, not destroy. We decided to go with the write-in option to preserve the integrity and validity of Student Council’s election process but also give the power of representation and voice to students,” Lisa said. 

“The decision to include a write-in option was a way to honor both the decision to disqualify Tony and the strong support he received from classmates,” Student Council co-advisers Anne Rankin and Laura Marshall said.

Additionally, Rankin noted that “a write-in did not violate the [StuCo] constitution because the temporary new house rules that were voted in allowed the Elections Committee to run elections differently this term.” 

Outside of StuCo’s official statement, Horrigan shared his perspective. “Tony shouldn’t have been disqualified,” Horrigan said. “He put in a lot of effort, and he did skate our rules. He successfully found a loophole, and he put in four hours of effort to get around it. That is something that’s impressive. We should commend someone for putting in four hours of effort on StuCo, not disqualifying them for it.”

However, Horrigan said that after the Co-Presidents made their decision to disqualify Cai, they should have stuck with it. “By not holding to our earlier statement, we demonstrated the weakness of our Student Council,” Horrigan said. “What does adding a write-in option imply about Student Council’s devotion to process? Our first mistake was making a bad decision, and our second mistake was not standing by that decision.”

During the popular backlash following Cai’s disqualification, students relentlessly emailed Elections Committee Heads Charlie Preston and Georgie Venci. Some students even called for Preston and Venci to resign. “I truly appreciate the discourse, but to make sure your voices are best heard, I encourage fully written responses detailing the ‘why’ of your concern,” StuCo Co-Secretary Siona Jain said. “The email chain started out with a thoughtfully written email, but the subsequent emails could’ve been compiled as signatures and ultimately clogged inboxes of upperclassmen who are trying to juggle StuCo on top of homework or college applications.”

Despite being inundated with angry emails, Venci commended the activism of the student body. “As a member of the elections committee and a vocal activist in the community, I absolutely love this sort of engagement in elections and issues,” Venci said. “We truly hope that this sort of energy will carry over into other Student Council plans to get those done.”

According to Lisa and Robinson, adding a fourth representative for the Lower Class requires a constitutional amendment that is voted on by the entire Student Council. “Exec. Board is not comfortable amending the constitution without the full support of the full Council,” they said. “We are hoping to have residential reps. elected within the next few weeks, but until then we will not add a constitutional amendment. Once we have a full Council, we are more than happy to explore the possibility of a constitutional amendment adding a fourth lower representative, which we will bring before Council to vote.”

The election has spanned over two weeks and may not be finished. “This was one of the most engaged elections StuCo has seen, and I fully expect to see lowers use this same incredible persistence in pursuing anti-racist work and in pushing people to vote,” Jain concluded. “I truly hope this persistence wasn’t limited to our StuCo election.”