“In their desperation to play hardball with UB’s fat cats, the duo seems to have cast common sense aside.”

Why The Spectrum’s editorial board is writing about the University Council elections in the narrative tone of Batman, I can’t say. For my money, the facts of the story don’t quite add up. The editorial states that both candidates broke the rules, Creighton Randall by hanging up fliers in a forbidden hallway, and Ilia Nossov by going around a computer room during an online election asking for votes. Both are facing hours of community service but, as of Saturday evening, the results of the election will remain unchanged.

I’m not crazy, right? Tell me I’m not crazy.

The details of the University Council elections, which hover somewhere between embarrassing and thoroughly stupid, come out sounding like something that should be printed in The Onion.

Roughly 800 people voted over the course of three days last week for their choice of two candidates, Ilia Nossov and Creighton Randall. The two have similar platforms, but completely different prior experience—Nossov was a publicity director, while Randall was on the staff of SA.

The University Council is a group of ten advisors to President Simpson. According to an informational flyer distributed throughout the Student Union, “The council reviews and makes recommendations on general plans, including budgets, buildings and grounds, academic programs and faculty, student admissions and student activities, safety and housing.” In other words, the representative position might be even more important than your student government. But there aren’t any voting booths in the Union. Instead, voters are herded through a fairly cryptic series of hoops on the UBlearns website (Ublearns.buffalo.edu).

Let’s not kid ourselves. The only way to get students to vote for Student Association officials—you know, the group that spends your hundred bucks—is to stand in the Union for a week passing out flyers. At least students know what SA does. The only job title more vague than “University Council Representative” would be that of his hypothetical assistant. When the polls closed, Nossov had won the election by just 30 votes, nearly 52 percent of the total.

But, according to Randall, many of those votes may have been acquired through dubious means. Randall says that he found Nossov in the Capen Hall Cybrary, “going from computer to computer for votes.” In an email, Randall said, “I think this election rule is simply common sense…the act is akin to a candidate being in the voting booth.”

“I was helping my friends out, and [Randall] came in and took a photo,” Nossov told Generation. Nossov maintains that the only reason he was in the Cybrary was to show his friends how to vote, not to influence it. Furthermore, he denies his Cybrary presence was illegal. “He’s accusing me of campaigning in a polling place. I read the rules several times and it’s defined as 50 feet away from the ballot box. The ballot box would be the server where UBlearns is hosted. It’s kind of open to interpretation.”

When asked about the online election and rules, Nossov responded, “I think the whole system should be revamped.”

According to Randall, Nossov’s arguments don’t hold up. “Jenn Wantz [Assistant Director of Student Activities] tells me ‘you broke the rules,’ I stop,” said Randall. “He breaks the rules, he continues to break the rules because it helps him win.” Photos taken by Randall show Nossov standing over the shoulder of students in the Cybrary. Randall says he received several emails from students reporting that Nossov was in the computer room at various times, seemingly to help students vote.

Randall intends to file a complaint against Nossov in a letter to the Council of Student Presidents in an attempt to have Nossov’s votes voided.

Contacted at home on Saturday, Jennifer Wantz said that she had already forwarded the complaints she had received to the Student Wide Judiciary. These include the posters Randall hung in the Capen hallway as well as several emails Wantz received about Nossov campaigning in the Cybrary. Though Wantz is in charge of the elections, it isn’t entirely a Student Life issue.

Wantz says that Student Life is only involved because the six student governments were already too busy with their executive board elections. Each year, she says, the student governments sign off on a letter allowing Student Life to be in charge of the council elections. But last week she told The Spectrum, “I really don’t like running this election at all.” Were she in Randall’s shoes, however, she said, “I would be furious.”

For the past five years, the election for University Council Representative has been held online at UBlearns. Since then, students and election officials have both had their complaints. A candidate in 2002 resigned from the race because he felt an online system would remove the possibility of a fair election. In 2004, according to The Spectrum, one candidate was “investigated for setting up an illegal polling station…on a laptop computer.” Then, in a 2005 article, a candidate was quoted saying “online voting could entice the candidates to break rules that prevent them from staying a certain distance from a polling place—areas that could now include libraries and computer rooms.”

Nossov was a candidate in the 2005 race.

Last year, Wantz said pretty much exactly what she said this year. Again, from The Spectrum: “‘ It’s pretty complicated to actually vote. We’re working on it next year to make it easier for students.’ She also said there were plans to change the process for this year’s elections, but there wasn’t enough time.” In an email to the candidates, Wantz said the new website would not be up and running this year, and that “we will be using UBlearns for this one last year.”