3-4-11

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UNI hosts annual AfricanAmerican Read-In 5

UNI professors creating new documentary on Parkersburg tornado 3

Northern Iowan 10

Mistakes were made

the university of northern iowa’s student-produced newspaper since 1892

March 4, 2011

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Volume 107, Issue 41

FRIDAY

Cedar Falls, Iowa

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northern-iowan.org

spencer.ian.WIN. JOHN ANDERSON

Executive Editor

Spencer Walrath and Ian Goldsmith named student body president and vice president following the discovery of a transposition error in the election votes

working for the YOUniversity A human error ELECTION RESULTS The Northern Iowa Student Government named Spencer Walrath and Ian Goldsmith student body president and vice president Monday night after the discovery of a transposition error in the election votes revealed that the ticket received approximately 75 percent of the votes in the general elections. After the correction, Walrath and Goldsmith received 1,636 votes, Rhonda Greenway and Adam Beaves received 366 and Dakotah Reed and Zach Simonson received 177. Walrath and Goldsmith will take office on April 15. “I’m so excited to finally get down to work and be able to start learning the job and taking on these roles and getting our platform accomplished,” Walrath said. Despite the unconventional and surprising announcement of their victory, Goldsmith expressed excitement over the results. “The honor of being the next leaders of the student body, regardless of how you hear, regardless of when it happens, regardless of in what way, is pretty exciting in itself,” he said. “No, it didn’t happen (in a) textbook way, but in the long run it doesn’t matter, and it might make a good story someday.” The ticket thanked the other candidates for running “great” campaigns and hope that they will consider future involve-

Walrath-Goldsmith 1636 votes Greenway-Beaves 366 votes

TOTAL VOTES 2256

Reed-Simonson 177 votes ment in NISG. “I think everyone ran a really great campaign,” Walrath said. “Every ticket got stronger and stronger as the campaign went on, and I just think it’s great that so many people were able to take part in this experience and really find out what they’re standing for, find out

Rhonda and I deeply respect the will of the student body and were going to respect it whatever it was,” he said. “Rhonda and I just want to congratulate Spencer and Ian,” Beaves continued. “We look forward to partnering with them and working with them and helping them in any way we can next year, because we did have a lot of common visions and common themes in our platThe honor of being forms.” the next leaders of the Though he intends to remain in the university next student body, regardless involved year, how he will be involved is of how you hear, still an “open book” for Beaves. regardless of when it Beaves thanked his supporthappens, regardless of ers for understanding the situafter providing additional in what way, is pretty ation support during the week leadexciting in itself. ing up to the ultimately canIan Goldsmith celed runoff elections. student body vice-president-elect “What’s frustrating is that you ask so much of your friends what they’d like to see done.” and your family to begin with Vice presidential candidate when you’re gonna run, and Adam Beaves expressed support then they all work so hard for Walrath and Goldsmith. for you during the general “Sure, we would have liked the outcome to be different, but See ELECTIONS, page 3

NISGelections.com writers Trevor Boeckmann and Adam Haselhuhn filed a grievance with the Northern Iowa Student Government election commission Monday after an examination of the election ballots revealed an error in the off-campus votes. While the votes were correct in the individual ballots, the votes for Spencer Walrath and Ian Goldsmith were mistakenly attributed to Rhonda Greenway and Adam Beaves, whose votes were mistakenly attributed to Dakotah Reed and Zach Simonson, whose votes were mistakenly attributed to Walrath and Goldsmith. “While going through the on-campus numbers, I noticed a huge lead for Walrath-Goldsmith,” Boeckmann said on the NISG Elections blog. “They had won every constituency. When I started to enter off-campus numbers, I noticed something odd. “For some reason, the order of the candidates on the spreadsheet had changed. This was the first time they had been listed in a different order out of all of the 70 plus ballots. The official results have listed that WalrathGoldsmith had gotten 87 off-campus votes, GreenwayBeaves had 605 and Reed-Simonson 166. I was shocked by the numbers.” The commission met Monday night to examine the ballots and ruled that the Walrath-Goldsmith ticket did in fact win the election with 75 percent of the vote. The commission approved the results by unanimous consent, recertified the election and canceled the runoff election that was scheduled for this week after no ticket seemed to receive a majority vote in last week’s general elections. “I’m glad we could make a decision to correct this mistake,” Election Commissioner Gage Rewerts said in a press release. “The work of the commission has corrected the situation and we have showed that in this time of confusion, common sense can prevail.” “This (error) reflects no ill will on the part of the commission,” said student body president Joel Anderson. “I think they still did an amazing job of counting every single write-in vote … This error is human.” Rewerts feels the error highlights the weaknesses and limitations of the current system, which he hopes to revise in the coming weeks. “NISG has come through worse; I’m just glad we caught this before people had a chance to vote,” Rewerts said.


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