As the semester comes to a close, a new IU Student Association Election Commission chair has been chosen and pending a final appeal decision from the Student Body Supreme Court, a new administration will occupy the office in the Student Activities tower.
The most recent elections and ensuing appeals process led to a tumultuous juncture in IUSA's history.
A season that started off with six tickets resulted in one campaign dropping weeks before voting started, and an election that ended with 25 filed complaints — not all accepted — developed into disqualification for one ticket and a one-third vote deduction for another, and leading ticket Empower IU came out unscathed.
Although Engage for IUSA filed a sixth appeal April 13 with the Student Body Supreme Court, the judicial body has denied all the previous appeals, and the same week, President-elect junior Dan Niersbach said the general consensus was that nothing would change in terms of results. Empower received 1800 of the initial 5686 votes initially cast, though after deductions the tally stood at 4681 when disqualified IGNITE’s votes were taken into account.
In addition to winning the election as an executive ticket, Empower also secured about half of the seats in IUSA Congress.
“It’s nice to have a kind of majority, but also, I don’t think Congress should just vote and pass things just ‘cause we tell them to,” Niersbach said the week the results were verified
Conflict between the executive and legislative branches of IUSA appeared to be a trademark of the past semester and can be exemplified by an eight-email thread between the outgoing executives, speaker of congress and a member of Congress. The Indiana Daily Student was copied on this thread.
The chain was started by junior Dakota Coates, a representative and chair of the IUSA Oversight and Reform Committee, who was elected on the Empower ticket. The initial email, which referred to the committee as “Internal Oversight and Reform Committee Chair,” pertained to campaign involvement of former president Sara Zaheer and used her social media posts as evidence of overreach. Her term was scheduled to end three days later.
Of the other six people included on the email, four, including advisor to vice president of Congress and 2017 IUSA presidential candidate, junior Brandon Sakbun, replied.
Sakbun echoed beliefs he’d expressed in the past about how these types of squabbles did nothing to benefit student government’s culture. He also mentioned decreasing voter turnouts — 8265 in 2015 and 6323 in 2016.
The incoming chair of the Election Commission, junior Savannah Wormley, said Sunday that although it is ambitious, the commission hopes to increase turnout by 20 percent next year. She said this could be promoted by candidate information and election feedback sessions starting in the fall.
Outgoing vice president of administration senior Alex Trevino agreed with Sakbun on the thread, and questioned why the email was sent so close to the end of her administration’s term. She mentioned how her colleagues supported tickets as well and questioned how Zaheer’s influence had any effect given that the ticket she supported came in third in preliminary vote counts.
“If sharing your own beliefs, opinions and support for another ticket exemplifies an ‘abuse of power’ than (sic.) that in itself seems undemocratic,” Trevino wrote in her email. “Regardless, I can confirm working alongside Sara this entire year that she has dedicated more time toward projects that benefit the students more than any other student I know.”
Coates responded by claiming his qualms were not with her endorsement of Engage, nor was he questioning her commitment to the committee.
“My statement on a potential abuse was derived from the connections that one could have with the Election Commission and Supreme Court,” he wrote back.
By this point, the court had already denied five of Engage’s appeals, and the commission has deducted almost 10 percent of Engage’s votes. The ensuing emails from outgoing treasurer junior Patrick Kennedy, and speaker of Congress senior Miko Siewenie — who also worked as Empower’s chief of internal affairs — got to the core of the argument: the issue was personal.
Save for responses from Sakbun and Coates, the latter of which asked for clarification, Siewenie’s message was the longest and addressed Sakbun, Trevino and Kennedy specifically. Siewenie backed Coates’ concerns and claimed the outgoing executives did not perform their duties, which she said she’d complained about throughout their term.
“I am relieved that this year is nearly over because I am not sure I would have survived much more of this toxic administration,” Siewenie said. “I am not saying I am faultless because I know that I was not always patient with other branches of IUSA. However, I feel that as the leader of the legislative branch, the least I could do was try to keep my social media free of gossip.”
