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10,000 in the trash

In a precedent-setting move, the University Students’ Council will hold a re-vote on their elections ballot following a hacking incident.

Wednesday evening, around 5 p.m., USC executives informed the four presidential candidates the results for the previous two days’ voting had been deemed invalid after the voting website was hacked late Tuesday night.

When the hack first occurred, Information Technology Services determined it to be superficial and that none of the over 10,000 votes had been affected. Once the hack was fixed, the USC decided to continue with the elections as usual.

However, once administration were notified, a decision was made that the results had been compromised. Since two of the voting bullets were referenda concerning student fees, the Board of Governors and Administration had the final say in releasing those results, according to Andrew Forgione, USC president.

“The University came to the table, and they were already going to cancel their Board of Governors and senator elections. When we came to the table we wanted to keep our results because we felt they weren’t compromised,” Forgione said, but added it didn’t seem right to release the presidential results when the other results had been deemed to be compromised.

“It’s a decision that we weren’t happy to make.”

The USC has not released how the record number of votes were distributed, but Forgione explained if they stuck with the original vote, it is likely candidates would have balked—and with good reason.

“Any candidates who would have lost or contested the results would have had a case,” he said.

Candidates were invited to an elections committee meeting last night to decide how to proceed with a re-vote. It was decided the new election results night will be held Thursday, March 1, with voting opening at 12:01 a.m. on February 29 and closing March 1 at 8 p.m.

USC presidential candidates and their teams, after weeks of campaigning, were unhappy with the events. They seemed both shocked and exhausted after receiving the news.

“I’m not happy that they’re redoing it, but at the same time I think whoever would have won, there would have been an uproar about that win from other candidates saying it was compromised,” candidate Logan Ross said, adding with a smile, “people are joking ‘would I do it again?’ Yeah, I am. I’m doing it again.”

Claire McArthur, who was unable to attend in person, called in to the meeting to get the news.

“I’m sure everyone put forth their best effort and I’m not in their shoes; I can’t say if I could have handled anything differently. This was obviously a last resort, they didn’t want to have to come to this,” she said.

After the meeting, Adam Fearnall met with two of his campaign workers outside of USC offices but seemed in good spirits. He said his supporters had run a good campaign and they were ready to do it again, if need be.

“The political climate will change and we’ll see.”

However, one candidate was slightly more rattled by the news. Jon Silver said he felt the hack, the decisions made and the communication of these decisions was indicative of a lack of student-focus in the USC as a whole.

“It’s like a slap in the face. You work so hard at something—and I’m not talking on behalf of myself, I’m talking on behalf of every single person who put their lives into this. And not just on my team, but on other teams as well,” he said after the meeting.

Several member of Silver’s team met with him while they awaiting the elections committee meeting later that night. Silver’s campaign manager, Nicole Kopera was in near tears as she reacted to the decision.

“[USC communications officer Eliot Hong] assured me that the backup system that ITS used was not compromised and that no ballots had been added, no ballots had been deleted, and nothing had been modified,” she said.

“He assured me of that.”

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