The Student Government Association election commission has disqualified four students — including the president-elect and vice president-elect — on the basis of election fraud for using students’ personal information to cast votes without their consent during the general elections.
Numerous witnesses told the election commission Natural Sciences and Mathematics senators-elect Brandon Balwant and Laxmi Ramana, members of the McHugh-Aijaz party, approached students with a “petition” to change faucets in the M.D. Anderson Library that required the students’ first and last names, PeopleSoft numbers, birthdays, classifications and the college they were enrolled in — all information that was required to vote in the election, said Arsalan Razakazi, chief election commissioner.
Michael McHugh, who was elected president in the run-off elections, and his running mate Mohammed Aijaz were also disqualified because of the fraud. His party — McHugh-Aijaz — was the main beneficiary from the fraudulent voting, Razakazi said.
“Candidates who are members of a Party are held individually accountable to the provisions of this code, although parties as a whole may be held accountable to the provisions of this code,” says article III, section three, clause four of the SGA elections code as quoted in the election commission’s decision.
Two other sections from the code that are quoted in the decision say that candidates found guilty of election fraud can be disqualified and candidates that don’t meet requirements of the code can not win the election.
“We interviewed; we contacted each of the witnesses; we tried to make conferences with them in our office. We do thank them for their time,” said Dre Perez, an assistant election commissioner. “It’s not easy for them to come over here…they have to study for exams; they have to write papers, so we just thank them for time and their diligence in helping us come to this decision.”
All four students have 24 hours to appeal the disqualification to SGA’s judiciary branch. If the appeal is accepted, they will go to trial, Razakazi said.
“We’ve done a lot of research…we’ve been working countless hours — we even worked over spring break. This decision wasn’t easy… it wasn’t something we took lightly,” said Said Jalajal, an assistant election commissioner. “Even though it’s tough, we’re sticking by this decision because we believe its fully right to those people who were done wrong.”
McHugh refused to comment.
news@thedailycougar.com
It looks like they're convicting on statments from random students? Since when is that enough evidence to convict on charges this serious? Sounds like corruption to me.
Dang, has this ever happened before?
If you're being sarcastic, I'm laughing with you!
If you're serious, then yes. A similar thing happened last year unfortunately…. :(
Last year the issue was "what is a polling location" and new technologies. This time is stealing people's ppl soft and identity to plug in votes.
I worked countless hours with Michael McHugh and Mohammad Aijaz this past election and I know for a fact they had nothing to do with any kind of election fraud. Both Michael McHugh and Mohammad Aijaz spent entire days out campaigning talking to thousands of students and listening to their concerns. Why would they risk throwing away all the effort that they put into this election by commiting election fraud for a few votes? It makes no sense . I would also like to see what evidence there is against them other than " some students' testimonies" I expect the disqualification to be appealed within 24 hours and hope that they are acquitted of these charges.
For one, you have to keep your party in check. It doesn't say they explicitly committed voter fraud, but that they were being punished because members of their party DID explicitly commit voter fraud. Plus, when it comes down to "he said, she said," why would I believe your word over the word of the people who had their votes stolen? Do you honestly believe a group of people who "voted" for McHugh-Aijaz later got together for the purpose of bringing them down by pointing the finger at others in their party? What's the simplest explanation here? Do you know what Occam's Razor is?
First of all…they "spent entire days out campaigning talking to thousands of students and listening to their concerns" gives them more motive to make sure they will win by stealing votes. Are people really going to believe you? Your their friend, they could have done this before. They're corrurpt, I know McHugh has cheated the system before.
As someone who was duped by these people I would like to know what PUNISHMENT the students who collected the information will receive. I’m sure they knew what this information was going to be used for.
If any university official is reading this, the two students I saw collecting the information were:
1. A skinny dark skinned Indian male.( he was the one with the sheet telling people it was for the faucets.)
2. An Indian female. I saw her photo on an election flier and she is in the student Senate. ( they were together but the guy was the one doing all of the talking )
The article calls it election fraud but it should say identity theft! I wonder what else could be done with this information.
While the concept of online voting is an interesting one, it has been proven on many occasions to be an unworkable solution that just begs for voter fraud, especially considering students didn't have to log in using their PeopleSoft ID or something to vote. Even the U.S. Government found out in a trial run in 2010 that with sufficient motivation and experience, any online voting system can be hacked (http://rt.com/usa/news/hack-voting-system-dc-593/). While our system wasn't hacked technologically (as far as we know), it was hacked socially because the designers of the voting system didn't do enough to safeguard against it.
So here are my big important questions. Will there be complete reelections? Will there be actual voting booths that require us to show (or even swipe) our student ID to vote? If not any of these things, why not? I know these are just SGA elections, but is it really that hard to protect against this kind of thing?
The designers of the voting system are clueless. They took the Peoplesoft ID, something that can be found by enrolling in classes where grades are sent out listed with Peoplesoft numbers, or overhearing them being spoken to entry staff at the Welcome Center (for example), and combined them with birthdates, which can be guessed, and made that the initial criteria for voting. No name, nothing else. How is that intelligent?
Frankly, I'm surprised it took this long.
I'd just like to know how exactly a birthday can be guessed, are you saying that they sat at computers for hours entering every date on a calendar until one worked?
love how false witness’s and lies are enough to bring down a well run campaign, That annoying McHugh and his party was everyone on campus bugging me multiple times to vote with flyers. Doubt they would go through that effort to just throw it all away with some bs MICHAEL HARDING scandal….hmmmm frame much?
those guys didn't do it; this is just more sga politicing, those guys are cool
The testimony of a few students wasn’t enough when the same thing happened last year against Michael, but suddenly it is? You can’t seriously tell me that the person spending the most time to campaign and using the most fliers would risk the election on something like this. This is obviously another attempt to keep him out of office again. And this is what UH teaches us: Democracy is a good concept as long as the person we want to win wins. Let us all congratulate cedric and the 135% of students who voted for him. Pathetic UH… again.
Many people knew of this fraud, and it only takes the testimony of one to make grounds for a case. As the article states, more than one came forth. The real question is why some people are willing to overlook the fraud as a whole because of the amount of people who came forth. Yes, it may have been just a small number, but a violation of the rights of students is an infringement of rights nonetheless, whether it is 1 or 35,000. The election commission would not have made this decision without sufficient evidence. I know there will be appeals, so let's stop arguing and leave this to the judiciary branch.
"His party — McHugh-Aijaz — was the main beneficiary from the fraudulent voting, Razakazi said." How can Razakazi claim this when all votes are sealed? These votes are private and confidential information. NOBODY, including the election commission, can see who students cast their ballots for.
If all votes are sealed and no one can see who students voted for, how can a winner be determined? Plus, if a student found out they had "already voted," and can show ID, why can't that student find out who they supposedly voted for? Votes are probably only private up until the point that a student tells the election commission that they can look at their vote.
That's incredibly stupid to say mr. blunk….that's why whenever the candidates are elected, there is a report that says who voted for you. It includes race, major, sex, and those wouldn't be available if it was confidential. Come on, you were in sga before. Don't be a wanker mate.