Something Fishy
Today an anonymous informant came to our office today to show us text messages from reminder@ohdontforget.com. The text reads as follows.
“We are 100 votes behind! Can you get 5 new votes for Amelie and Maneesh and Campus Change Coalition before voting closes at 5pm.”
I’m not sure who is keeping voting tabs right now but I am positive the only one who is can view them at this time is Nolan Gary ASUO elections coordinator.
As I was writing this post the informant also received a text from Brian Allen one of the top volunteer coordinators for the Amelie and Maneesh campaign. The text reads,
“We are down by 100 votes can you get 5 more votes for Amelie and Maneesh in the next 3C candidates in the next 2hrs?!”
Now these voting tabulations could be pure speculation by the Amelie and Maneesh campaign or a serious violation of campaign rules. Either way stay tuned to the blog for election results at 6 tonight.
Not even Nolan has access to the vote counts- they are kept with the Registrar who according to Julie Palanuk does not view the result totals until after 5.
Oh and for better or worse maliciously lying to students is not against campaign rules.
We used to tell candidates that we worked with that they were losing and we had it from a good source. Of course we didn’t, but it served as motivation. That being said, I’m surprised that with only one hour left, Alex and Alden are still on the ballot. Seems like every candidate that isn’t a liberal pig gets removed either from the ballot or their current position within the ASUO.
Nolan does not have access to the vote counts- they are kept on a computer in the Registrar that they do not access until after five.
For better or worse, maliciously lying to students is not against elections rules.
A. Crampton is correct. This is just a campaign ploy. I don’t have access to the actual voting spread, to my knowledge no Elections Coordinator ever has, and I’ve never asked for it. I try to get an updated count of the total number of people who have voted so far, which is currently 3,500.
The Amelie/Maneesh/3C campaign is not accessing the votes, FYI. They’re estimating vote counts based on the people whom they’ve called and gotten unofficial votes from. It’s a tactic that, while somewhat useful in pushing voters to polls, has the potential to be totally inaccurate as well as a complete turnoff to that candidate.