Internet Troubles Plague Special Election

Student Body President Justin Young, along with other student government officials, contemplated extending voting for Homecoming king and queen and open Student Congress seats through today because they feared the technical problems had kept some students from voting.

But officials decided to call the race Wednesday night after candidates unanimously voiced concern about extending the election, and all agreed to accept the results of Wednesday's voting.

The election for the Student Congress representative in District 17 will be postponed until Tuesday because of additional complications specific to that race. The special election was held to fill 13 empty seats in Congress.

Results of the Homecoming election will be announced during halftime at Saturday's football game. The newly elected Congress representatives are Daniel Herman and Nora Kizer in District 9, Margaret Thomas in District 13, Emma Ruff in District 18, Matthew Dresnick in District 21 and Eryn Linkous in District 25. As of late Tuesday, Districts 2, 3, 4, 10 and 19 still had vacancies.

But a Student Central server failure threatened to force changes in both elections. Emily Margolis, Board of Elections chairwoman, said problems in one of the three Student Central servers caused errors for students logging on to vote between 7 a.m. and noon in all races.

Kristal Evans, a sophomore from Greenville, said she tried to vote three times before getting into the system. She also said the site was not open at 9 a.m. when she tried to log on. "It was so irritating."

But while many voters were met with error messages, some students were not aware the elections were taking place or decided not to vote. "I didn't try to vote today, but I'm not surprised there were computer problems," said Lee Bush, a junior from Charlotte. "There is always something wrong with Student Central."

Margolis said she did not feel the decision to postpone the District 17 race would negatively affect voter turnout because the candidates in that district, freshmen Natalie Russell and Anthony Stokes, have been very active. District 17 includes Craige and Ehringhaus residence halls and Odum Village.

But Stokes said that because all of his campaign materials advertised Nov. 7 as election day, many voters will not be aware of the postponement. He also said he was discouraged by voting problems because he thinks students need to see Congress as functioning effectively.

Although the Homecoming candidates said they were frustrated by the day's events, they said they were satisfied with how the Board of Elections handled the server breakdown.

Homecoming queen candidate Shayla Higginbotham said she and other candidates were not pressured into making a decision about postponing the election. "The board gave us ample time to decide," she said.

Margolis said Wednesday's problems resulted from an instrumental error and not a human one. She said she is confident the general elections in February will not have similar complications.

Young said candidates agreed that ending voting at the planned time was fair. "This is Chapel Hill, not Florida," he said. "We want to have a good election."

The University Editor can be reached at udesk@unc.edu.