Arbor Update

What happened to all the talk of MSA and leading up to it? Where are the results posted? Goodspeed had an entire section devoted to MSA election results, but there isn’t a single peep here?

stu

“Goodspeed had an entire section devoted to MSA election results, but there isn’t a single peep here?”

Submissions welcomed—just write up a summary together with any relevant URL’s and mail it to arborupdate@umich.edu.

MSA overload perhaps?

Stallings of Students 4 Michigan beat Fox of the Michigan Progressive Party for MSA president in an election with high turnout and campaign scandals. Full coverage in Today’s Michigan Daily.

17% is a high turnout? spam is a scandal?

i was rooting for rese (“don’t call me witherspoon”) fox.

Turnout was 22%...which is high in comparison to previous years…and if you think that spam is the only thing that was happening in this election, you should look more into it.

It should be higher next semester, b/c I’ll be back in town.

stu

Here’s an idea for a new party platform for next time:

-Since the MSA doesn’t even closely represent the will of the student body, and can’t hold an election that isn’t full of corruption anyway, and since the MSA is therefore unfit to dispense student group funding, every student is to be given an equal share of student group funding for the group or groups of each’s choosing (this would take a software engineering project to implement but it could be done)

-Any candidate found guilty of electioneering by the CSJ is expelled and given felony charges of attempted grand larceny (this should cut down on the electioneering)

There is a rumor—whatever rumors are worth—that
a) there are going to be attempts made to impeach (!!!) the Central Student Judiciary because it may overturn some election results; and, even more fun,

b) a DEAN or somebody has expressed desire, if the CSJ does overturn stuff, and somehow does not get impeached, to quash any overturning of election results. ...Under what authority? Why not just have Mary Sue and the Regents pick the student government for us??
Pure speculation maybe, these rumors; but one can only pass on what one has heard.

How modest, Stu.

Absent some proof of massive voter fraud, what business is it of the CSJ to overturn election results?? It sounds like the current election code is a disaster and if that’s what passes for “reform”, MSA got exactly what was coming to it with this debacle.

Here’s a question: Why doesn’t DAAP just re-file all of the other parties complaints and steal the election?

Here’s a better question: Why did S4M violate their settlement with MPP?

Details? Sorry if I don’t know, but am curious about how S4M violated their settlement with MPP. Thanks!

Short story: S4M and MPP agreed to withdraw complaints if S4M’s chair Robbie O’Brien wrote a letter to the Michigan Daily acknowledging S4M’s responsibility for the Denial of Service attack on MPP’s website on the night of the election. However, the letter had to be approved by MPP chair Jon Koller. O’Brien did submit a letter to the Daily on Monday, but it was not the letter approved by Koller. See Monday’s edition of the Daily to see the unapproved letter.

I think there are more recent developments involving this situation, but I haven’t heard about them yet. I can give you further updates once I hear them, if you want.

(Thanks Lindsey by way.)

Matt Nolan, former MSA president, telling people to work together et al. since a unified MSA is hard to beat. He also mentioned infamous MSA candidate Galaxor Nebulon from the FRAT (Friends Rebelling Against Tyranny) party some years back;

Mat Brener, unquestionably the most dynamic speaker of the evening: in his red MPP hoodie, during Community Concerns time, he condemned Students 4 Michigan for cheating in the election; said that things they did like sending one e-mail to conservative students and an e-mail with the opposite claim to liberal students was reprehensible; said he was ashamed of that party (with whom he had run in the past) and would vote against them until he or they were in hell (!!!); said the UM administration is not thoughtful toward student concerns and largely tells MSA to go f—- itself (or was it that MSA should tell the administration to f—- itself? similar idea in any case); and WAITED OUT THE LAST 50 SECONDS OF HIS ALLOTTED 5 MINUTES IN SILENCE.

Well, he sure got his point across!!

AND during General Announcements, he said that he endorses his previous statements—and offered to repeat them!

(Note: I am not endorsing anything he says, just relating it. The same re other speakers, too.) ;

Jon Koller (MPP chair) said that people might want to politick less and have some more genuine concern for student concerns at this point;

Justin Pfeiffer, law school rep, expounded on the relative lack of due process under the “Code” (lack of counsel for students who may be expelled, etc.), and on his efforts to rectify that; and said the Assembly might be a little too deferent to the administration;

Jesse “Outgoing, and outgoing, President” Levine wore a shirt emblazoned with “21%”, which he said was the silver lining of the election, i.e., the relatively huge turnout. He also produced one of the big laughs of the night when he said to Rese Fox that he and she did not always agree (.......);

Alex Moffett, speaking on the power of forgiveness and not being gotten down by all the criticism people will throw at MSA members, including commentary on the way you eat your food!! (she said).

Much of what was said this evening was tributes to fellow MSA members, all sorts of pleasant stuff.

That kind of thing is not always INTERESTING though, so I have some of the more edgy material listed above instead…..No single message I am drawing from all this, by the way. I would not necessarily expect inter-party rivalries, and contention with the UM administration and regents, to die down completely. But we shall see what we shall see.

(This part didn’t fit in last post, due to computer wackiness; it was going to be before “Justin Pfeiffer”):

Tim Hull (Student Conservative Party candidate) said he was not happy with people’s being too critical—this being the same Tim Hull, I think, whose apology letter, MSA candidate apologizes for spam sent during election was in the Daily today , re his super-spamming campaign e-mail which hit thousands of not only students but also faculty, staff, etc.

I heard that Koller asked Robbie to implicate himself in a federal crime, which is why Koller did not approve the letter. While I haven’t seen the written agreement, I would imagine the purpose was to apologize and not be coaxed in implicating anyone in a federal crime.

Robbie told me he was not aware this was happening and would have stopped it if he knew – b/c as you can see, the results of it are very damaging. I know Robbie, and he can barely use a computer.

stu

Ah computer. (And my own computer is refusing to break up my paragraph, so let me number at least:)

The Daily editorial was great. Pulled no punches. These guys should be ashamed of themselves.

And I thought you had no interest in MSA matters, Dan…(heh)

I do. My interest is to take as many cheap shots as possible.

Ha ha ha!

Hi David, was there a purpose to the pyramid remark? I don’t understand what you are trying to say…

Just that you are in Egypt, right?

I am in Egypt :) How did you know this?

stu

I thought it was common knowledge…

“TOKYO – Japan’s opposition party suffered a fresh humiliation Friday when its leadership resigned en masse over a fake e-mail scandal, handing Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi an uncontested grip on power in his last six months in office.”

Good thing MSA doesn’t have the accountability of a real government.

Do you have a link to that? or is it just parody or something?

David: heard of google?

I actually did Google, but did not get anything. Computer glitch, perhaps. Thanks!!

Here is the link

http://www.guardian.co.uk/worldlatest/story/0,,-5724735,00.html

Michigan Review reports in today’s “Exclusive: MPP to Challenge Election-Ending Agreement Thursday” at http://michiganreview.com/ that

...MPP Chief Legal Advisor Adam Farra…writes…“The MPP counsel is asking that if the CSJ finds that the agreement was breached, then the MPP should “gain back” its ability to file a claim charging S4M with election code violations (i.e. the Denial of Service attack).”

...There is no indication of whether or not MPP’s charge will fall or fly before CSJ, but if it does win in front of CSJ, it will win back the right to file election law violations—the ultimate impact of which are unknown.”

See today’s Daily, Police investigate S4M’s site attacks: For allegedly crashing a rival party’s website with a denial of service attack, at least one member faces possible jail time ,

“For at least one student, this year’s Michigan Student Assembly elections could result in significant time behind bars.

The Department of Public Safety is investigating claims that a Students 4 Michigan party member broke the law during last month’s student government elections. No charges have yet been filed against the student, whose name has not been released.

The two allegations are denial of service, which is a felony, and computer use to commit a crime. A denial of service, which is an attempt to crash a website or server, is a crime that carries up to five years in prison.

DPS spokeswoman Diane Brown said police have been working on the investigation since the claim was filed, which was right after the election.

Brown said she had no information regarding who filed the complaint, but would not release it if she did because it’s against DPS policy.

Depending on the maximum penalty of the original crime – in this case denial of service – the penalty for computer use to commit a crime increases or decreases. Because the maximum penalty for denial of service is between four and 10 years, the penalty for use of computer moves up to seven years in jail and/or up to $5,000 in fines.

In an interview during the election, Joe Golden, election webmaster of the rival Michigan Progressive Party, said an S4M member tried to shut down MPP’s website in the days prior to and during the election.

A specific file on the website was targeted and downloaded over 200,000 times in an attempt to overload the server, Golden said.

In a letter to the editor printed in The Michigan Daily March 27, Robbie O’Brien, S4M’s party chair during the election, admitted that an S4M member had attacked the website without the consent or knowledge of the party.

O’Brien resigned in the wake of the scandal.

MSA President Nicole Stallings, who ran on S4M’s ticket, said that changes are needed to alter the mindsets of people involved with elections. The conduct displayed in this year’s election was more borne out of tradition than personal conflict, she added.

“It’s upsetting that something like that could have happened during my campaign,” Stallings said.

The election was marked by dirty politicking by both S4M and MPP. Candidates engaged in an all-out political battle that involved political mud slinging and mass e-mails….”