Make it right; Re-vote in contested congressional election needed

Students deserve Student Congress representatives they legitimately elected.

And after all the problems in voting two weeks ago, Taylor Holgate is right to continue seeking a re-vote in Student Congress District 5 — Greek housing.

Holgate filed her second complaint with the Student Supreme Court on Saturday.

Chief Justice Emma Hodson, acting on behalf of the court, dismissed Holgate’s first complaint seeking a re-vote on Feb. 15. Holgate said the case was dismissed because she sued under the wrong section of the Student Code.

Holgate maintains that technical problems with the election system disenfranchised students.

As many as 296 students could have had problems voting in the student body election Feb. 9 because of incorrect class or residential information.

Holgate lost her race by 25 votes. It’s a small margin. And in light of the technical problems, it’s small enough to seriously scrutinize the results.

The only problem with Holgate’s continued push for a re-vote is the timing.

Student body elections were more than two weeks ago. A re-vote might have difficulty attracting student voters. While congressional elections are important, they’re not exactly high on many students’ priority lists.

But that shouldn’t deter Holgate from seeking to make the District 5 elections as legitimate as possible, even if it means having a lower voter turnout.

Holgate said she understood the timing concern, but said that there’s not a good alternative because the court process just takes time.

We agree. This case is about the principle of having fair student body elections.

Student body elections give us a legitimate student government. And with about $400,000 in student fee money to give out, Congress race results need to be accurate.

Holgate should continue doing everything she can to ensure District 5 has a fair election.