Record turnout overloads system, candidates furious
Election officials halted voting on student government elections and two campus referenda Wednesday after technical errors due to high voter turnout rendered the results invalid.
Members of the Associated Students of Madison Student Elections Commission were first made aware of the problem Tuesday after elections began. By Wednesday, the Division of Information Technology, which runs the online ballot system, had confirmed the system error, according to a DoIT statement.
An unprecedented voter turnout caused the problem, according to a SEC statement.
The decision raised the ire of ASM candidates and sponsors of the referenda, which included a measure to raise the wages of University workers and a plan to overhaul the student union buildings.
The problem was there was too much democracy, and their solution was stopping democracy,\ said UW-Madison junior Joel Feingold, a member of the Student Labor Action Coalition, which sponsored the referendum to raise Union wages.
Feingold said SLAC has brought a suit against SEC Chair and UW-Madison sophomore Tim Leonard, who made the final decision to shut down the elections.
Brian Rust, spokesperson for DoIT, said errors occurred when voters tried to enter more than one write-in candidate on their ballots.
""The first candidate name was recognized as valid and the second was not. When the voter submitted their selections, they received an error message. This prevented voters from submitting the multiple selections they desired,"" Rust said.
Leonard said this flaw violated students' rights, causing invalid results and a need to stop the elections.
""It was impossible for DoIT to find out what was the cause of the problem while the election was going on,"" Leonard said.
Candidates and representatives for the referenda insisted SEC find a way to count the votes at an initial press conference to announce the election's halt Wednesday afternoon and later at the SEC's 6 p.m. meeting to discuss further recourse.
A rally marched on the later SEC meeting, with participants chanting ""count all the votes.""
All expressed concerns that the same voter turnout could not be achieved when the elections reopened.
""I'm upset because I have been working nonstop for the last three days now. I pretty much had the votes to win as of this morning, so now that I have to start all over, it's a whole new ballgame,"" said UW-Madison sophomore Sam Ziesemer, who is running for a Letters and Science seat on ASM.
But many attendees expressed their excitement with the high voter turnout. According to UW-Madison senior and SEC member Eric Lensmire, the normal turnout for an ASM election is 12 to 13 percent of the student body over all three days the polls remain open. This election had seen a 15-percent turnout by the end of the first day.
""It's unfortunate that the technological capabilities weren't able to handle the turnout, but it's exciting nonetheless,"" ASM Chair Eric Varney said.
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