By Valerie Gauman Lucas
The polls for the Student Government Association (SGA) elections closed last Thursday at 7 p.m., which resulted in a victory by Pete DiSilvio and Carlos Cruz over incumbents and current SGA Vice President Kate Legnetti and SGA President Brent Weitzberg.
However, some SGA leaders believe that the DiSilvio-Cruz victory is not clear-cut.
“The issues regarding Pete’s eligibility to serve have not been laid to rest. The Senate, in its infinite stupidity, has decided not to pursue the matter any further,” said SGA Parliamentarian and Elections Chair Patrick McDonald. “As the issue stands now, he cannot run.”
One student compared this election to the George W. Bush-Al Gore presidential fiasco in 2000. “It’s frustrating because even the people in charge don’t seem like they know what’s going on,” said Emily Miethner, a sophomore graphic design major.
McDonald ruled last week that DiSilvio was ineligible to run at the end of a more than nine-hour senate meeting that lasted until 3:35 a.m. This was due to DiSilvio not being a member of the senate for a few days because of attendance issues.
“The elections commission voted that I could run, and since the elections commission is the ultimate judge of all eligibility, the issue has been laid to rest,” said DiSilvio.
He was reinstated early last Tuesday evening at the meeting.
A section of the constitution reads that members are required to be active members of senate from the day of an informational meeting about the elections through to the actual elections.
Last Thursday, DiSilvio and Cruz were not even on the ballot until Legnetti went to the Elections Commission petitioning them to re-add her competitors. They agreed and DiSilvio and Cruz’s reinstatement on the ballot took place around 2 p.m. on that same day.
There was an air of resolution in last Tuesday’s brief senate meeting. Weitzberg said, “We’re moving on, and I will still be involved with the student government next year.”
“I still am unsure of the officiality of the election,” he added, however.
McDonald voiced his frustration over the DiSilvio-Cruz victory. “Whether or not the student government will actually do anything about it is an entirely different issue altogether,” he said. “They probably won’t and come [next] Tuesday, they will have bent or broken the rules for Pete another time, totaling three or four times that he has received ‘the benefit of the doubt.'”
“Graduating this May,” McDonald continued, “I don’t necessarily have an opinion one way or the other, but when you look back at the number of times that people have broken the rules for him, the student government does not look like an organization at which the rules are all applied fairly and equally.”
DiSilvio protested McDonald’s assertion. “No one broke a rule for me, ever,” he said. “The only thing that’s ever happened was that they were going to change a rule for me last year, which they did not.”
McDonald accused the SGA of not following its own policies. “The Student Government looks like a band of hypocrites, forcing clubs to follow rules, attend congresses, do office hours, while at the same time, ignoring their own policies in favor of one person,” he said. “I think it’s wrong, but I’m graduating and nobody in the senate will ‘suicide’ their own careers in order to fight for what is right.”
(Stephen Cooney)
Pete DiSilvio (center) and Carlos Cruz (foreground) won the SGA presidential election last week, but the election results remained in doubt this week because of issues concerning DiSilvio’s attendance. (Erin Furman)