Elias, Coulouris to lead MSA into new term

Patience is a virtue.

Bram Elias and Andy Coulouris -named Michigan Student Assembly president and vice president early this morning - and the other 67 candidates who ran in this term's elections, have learned a lesson or two about this virtue during the past week.

Seventy-one fraudulent votes cast during last week's general election caused a one-week delay in tabulating the final election results.

The elections board held a partial revote, which concluded last night at 11:59 p.m., and released the results shortly after the polls closed.

Of the more than 6,000 votes cast, Blue Party executive candidates Elias and Coulouris took 2,360 votes. Students' Party presidential and vice presidential candidates Sarah Chopp and Sumeet Karnik followed with 1,899 votes and Jessica Curtin and Erika Dowdell of the Defend Affirmative Action Party earned 855 votes.

"I've never been so proud to be apart of something in my whole life," Coulouris said, upon hearing of his victory.

In its campaign, the Blue Party's executive duo promised to expand the Student Coursepack Service, establish a direct constituency with University students, work to amend the Code of Student Conduct and get student representation on the University Board of Regents.

Of these core objectives, Elias said he thinks the assembly should make substantial progress on the issue of student representation.

"We expect that the Student Regent Liaison Committee will be done before the year is out," he said.

Ending his year on the assembly Students' Party vice presidential candidate Sumeet Karnik said his senior year may not include committee work on the MSA.

"We offer our congratulations and best wishes to Bram and Andy. We are sure they'll do a great job," Karnik said. "I am involved with various other organizations outside MSA."

Earlier this week, Chopp speculated that if she lost this election, she would also dive right into the other groups she is involved in including Hillel.

In addition to the Blue Party taking the assembly's executive office, the youngest of the three parties also took 12 of the 27 open seats.

One of those seats the newly elected LSA Rep. Rachel Arfa received the most votes this term. Racking up 5,203 votes, Arfa, who is deaf, not only represents LSA students, but she represents students with disabilities.

In addition to the Blue Party establishing a greater presence on MSA, the voting student body added four DAAP representatives to its six current assembly members.

"We're glad that we're increasing our voice on the assembly," Curtin said. "We're going to continue to stand up for students' rights.

The Students' Party, the oldest of the three competing parties, also gained four seats, while independent candidates earned two assembly seats.

Although the revote held earlier this week, did not include the executive slate, the presidential and vice presidential campaign was affected by the fraudulent votes. But not enough to make a difference in the results, so that race was not included in the revote.

But the races for the College of LSA, Kinesiology, School of Art and Design, School of Natural Resources and College of Engineering seats were affected by the fraudulent votes, and students that revote earlier this week voted in these races.

The Central Student Judiciary, the appellate court to the elections board, will consider an appeal filed by the Students' Party on Wednesday. The appeal contains five motions, all of which asked the CSJ to postpone releasing the election results to investigate the complaints.

Agreeing with some of the motions would mean drastically altering the elections results. One of the motions asks the CSJ to re-evaluate how it doles out demerits. If the CSJ sides with the Students' Party, it could remove Elias and Courlouris from their newly elected positions.

One of the other motions involves the Architecture and Urban Planning election. The CSJ has decided not to announce the results for that election until it has ruled on the case. Students' Party candidate Joel Kirzner ran unopposed but his name was omitted from the online ballot for part of the voting period. Students Party claims this may have injured the slate's chance of getting elected.

"Joel's name should have been on the ballot, because if there is a strong write-in candidate, that's not fair to Joel," Karnik said.

The CSJ will hear the five motions over the weekend.

The Department of Public Safety is currently conducting an investigation on the fraudulent votes. The elections board decided to release election results, even though it does not have the findings from the report.

"I have complete confidence that if something does come up, there will be an ethical investigation by MSA," Elections Director Andrew Serowik said.

But candidates in the LSA- Student Government race will have a little longer to wait before hearing results.

Although the polls for the MSA revote closed last night, the LSA-SG revote polls will remain open until 11:59 p.m. Monday. LSA-SG Elections Director Cagla Ozden said LSA-SG results may not be announced until the DPS report is released.

04-02-99