[Chad]

Joel Leavitt's Disqualification Overturned

Today it was announced that Joel Leavitt's disqualification has been overturned.

The MSU's annoucement:
"On Friday, March 7 2008, the Electoral Appeal Board of the MSU held an open hearing at which Joel Leavitt appealed fines and disqualification from the presidential election. On review of the evidence, a number of fines were rescinded and the disqualification overturned. Inquiries regarding the reasoning and evidence presented at the hearing can be directed to the office of the Speaker through email: speaker@msu.mcmaster.ca"

MacInsiders spoke with Joel today, and he is happy with the dicision that the Electoral Appeal Board made. The open hearing occurred last Friday, March 7th, and Joel was given a chance to voice his thoughts on the election rules that he had been accused of breaking.

"It was good to be able to talk openly about them", said Joel. He explained how he had been trying to stay "under the radar" by not telling anyone about the reasons he had been told caused his disqualification until the appeal process was over.

The question now is whether Joel will have a chance to have his ballots re-counted. Three counts have already taken place, and Jerimi Jones has lead two of those counts. If a fourth recount does occur, including Joel as a candidate, not only will numbers change (as redistribution will be different) but all previous counts will become obsolete.

Joel claims that after consulting with his scrutineers, he would have been positioned in second place during the first round of counting if his votes would have been allowed.

Joel stated that he is attempting to contact the Elections Committee to request that a re-count take place.

You can view more info about Joel on MacInsider's exclusive series here and here.

MacInsiders has requested further information from the SRA Speaker.

[AfroMaestro]

lol wow Mac is crazy
good luck JJones!!!

[DannyV]

You mean to tell me that KNOWING a candidate could have his disqualification over turned, the Elections Committee decided NOT to count the number of votes he received??

What is WRONG with this whole process?

[sarahsweet]

It doesn't say anywhere that they knew his disqualification would be overturned. They only had the hearing last Friday and didn't know what the outcome would be until the hearing was over.

[DannyV]

They knew it was a possibility. They should have counted the votes he received because obviously the decision to disqualify him was not final.

The right thing to do would have been to count him part of the race for president, rather than make a mockery of the whole elective process like they've been doing for the past month.

[marauderlove]

maybe cause the EC needed to do a count to get a winner that they could announce assuming Joel lost the appeal and waiting till his appeal was done could have taken a long time and people wanted results right away?

[Chad]

Please continue MSU Election discussion in our forum thread here. Thanks!