Vote Rigging Theory Surfaces

Just one day after the Undergraduate Council voted not to impeach its vice chair on charges of election fraud, two students have put forward a new theory that suggests three possible suspects.

The theory, advanced by one current and one former council member, suggests that a social committee member--and not Vice Chair Maya G. Prabhu '94--attempted to fix the election.

Prabhu, who conducted the social committee co-chair election, was accused by current committee chairs Marc D. McKay '94 and Spyros Poulios '95 of having rigged the ballots in favor of their opponents, Tree F. Loong '94 and Danielle D. Do '93.

Loong and Do were named winners of the election by Prabhu, with a count of seven to six in their favor. But, in a re-vote conducted the next day by Dean of the College L. Fred Jewett '57, McKay and Poulios won by a vote of nine to four.

The two theorists, who spoke on the condition of anonymity, based their conclusions on an anonymous letter claiming responsibility for the election fraud that was received by Council Chair Malcolm A. Heinicke '93 last Saturday.

In the letter, the author said he or she rigged the vote to show "how much of a joke the entire election process is."

According to the letter, the author removed two ballots from a hat in which they were being collected when Prabhu turned around, and then put in three more for Do and Loong.

The letter was distributed to all council members prior to the impeachment proceedings on Sunday. In a response, a four-member panel appointed by Heinicke to investigate the situation suggested that the scenario presented in the letter was unlikely.

The panel noted that in interviews with members of the social committee, no one recalled Prabhu setting the hat down and turning away from it.

In addition, the panel suggested that the votetallies outlined in the letter did not add upproperly, further undermining its credibility.

But according to the students' theory, thepanel erred by assuming that because theperpetrator voted for McKay and Poulios in thesecond election, supervised by Jewett, he or shevoted the same way in the original riggedelection.

Without that assumption, the claims in theletter support the vote totals reported by Prabhuas well as those recorded by Jewett.

In the subsequent re-vote before Jewett, thetheorists argued, the perpetrator likely voted forMcKay and Poulios because of Poulios' anger at hisloss.

According to the letter, after the initial votethe perpetrator scattered several ballots aroundthe council office when it became clear thatPoulios and McKay would contest the election.

"[Poulios] was getting angry and I just wanteda [re-vote] and I didn't know what to do," theanonymous author wrote.

Four ballots, in addition to the original 13,were found in the council office in the 12 hoursfollowing the election.

At Sunday's meeting, McKay--who called forPrabhu's impeachment--said that it would have beennext to impossible for another perpetrator tobring off the election fraud last week.

That person would have had to lie to Jewett andrisk identifying another committee members' ballotwhen the dean asked the students to claim theiroriginal ballots, he said.

But, according to the theory, if theperpetrator identified one of the four ballots heor she had created and scattered around theoffice, the risk of identifying a ballot that hadalready been claimed would be eliminated.

Only one of the four scattered ballots wasclaimed.

Alternatively, the sources suggested, theperpetrator could have included among thescattered ballots one of the originals stolen fromthe hat--resulting in it being identified bysomeone else--and then not identify a ballot ashis or her own.

That would account for one of the twoindividuals who told Jewett they were unable toidentify their ballots. It would also explain thefact that the extra ballot that was claimed was onthe original paper that Prabhu distributed tocommittee members before the election.

According to the sources, their deductionswould narrow the field of suspects to threeindividuals--the two who failed to identifyballots and the third who identified the extraballot.

Kalkanis, Duncan and Heinicke all said that thetheory is "plausible."

"I will guarantee that I will bring this up toeveryone else concerned," Kalkanis said. "Butthere are several other equally plausible theoriesthat we are looking into right now."

Kalkanis would not disclose the other theories.

Heinicke said he had instructed the panel toinvestigate all possibilities.

"There is nothing I would love more than tofind out who did this, so that the council canhave a clear name," Heinicke said

In addition, the panel suggested that the votetallies outlined in the letter did not add upproperly, further undermining its credibility.

But according to the students' theory, thepanel erred by assuming that because theperpetrator voted for McKay and Poulios in thesecond election, supervised by Jewett, he or shevoted the same way in the original riggedelection.

Without that assumption, the claims in theletter support the vote totals reported by Prabhuas well as those recorded by Jewett.

In the subsequent re-vote before Jewett, thetheorists argued, the perpetrator likely voted forMcKay and Poulios because of Poulios' anger at hisloss.

According to the letter, after the initial votethe perpetrator scattered several ballots aroundthe council office when it became clear thatPoulios and McKay would contest the election.

"[Poulios] was getting angry and I just wanteda [re-vote] and I didn't know what to do," theanonymous author wrote.

Four ballots, in addition to the original 13,were found in the council office in the 12 hoursfollowing the election.

At Sunday's meeting, McKay--who called forPrabhu's impeachment--said that it would have beennext to impossible for another perpetrator tobring off the election fraud last week.

That person would have had to lie to Jewett andrisk identifying another committee members' ballotwhen the dean asked the students to claim theiroriginal ballots, he said.

But, according to the theory, if theperpetrator identified one of the four ballots heor she had created and scattered around theoffice, the risk of identifying a ballot that hadalready been claimed would be eliminated.

Only one of the four scattered ballots wasclaimed.

Alternatively, the sources suggested, theperpetrator could have included among thescattered ballots one of the originals stolen fromthe hat--resulting in it being identified bysomeone else--and then not identify a ballot ashis or her own.

That would account for one of the twoindividuals who told Jewett they were unable toidentify their ballots. It would also explain thefact that the extra ballot that was claimed was onthe original paper that Prabhu distributed tocommittee members before the election.

According to the sources, their deductionswould narrow the field of suspects to threeindividuals--the two who failed to identifyballots and the third who identified the extraballot.

Kalkanis, Duncan and Heinicke all said that thetheory is "plausible."

"I will guarantee that I will bring this up toeveryone else concerned," Kalkanis said. "Butthere are several other equally plausible theoriesthat we are looking into right now."

Kalkanis would not disclose the other theories.

Heinicke said he had instructed the panel toinvestigate all possibilities.

"There is nothing I would love more than tofind out who did this, so that the council canhave a clear name," Heinicke said