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Chris Denice, CSOM '09, and Alejandro Montenegro, A&S '09, took 2,018 of the 3,895 votes cast on Thursday and Friday to win the Undergraduate Government of Boston College (UGBC) presidential election. Denice and Montenegro received 51.8 percent of the total votes in an election, which marked an increase in votes of over 59 percent from the 2,337 votes cast in last year's election.
Kyle Greenleaf, director of BC Votes and LSOE '10, was thrilled with the increased voter turnout, in which over 42 percent of the student body voted. "BC Votes had some effect, but all the teams, the candidates themselves, did a phenomenal job doing dorm walks, getting the word out to vote. I really think the Elections Committee decision to let the candidates use Facebook was a big factor," Greenleaf said. "I think the campaigns did a better job of pulling freshmen in this year."
Denice and Montenegro too were thrilled with the results of the election, and are already formulating plans for their tenure as president and vice president of the UGBC, positions they will take over in May.
The team's first step will be to continue work on projects already underway.
"One of the projects I'm already working on is to reassess what the budget pays for, making sure the events we've been funding as a tradition is being spent for the greater good of the student body. For example, the UGBC has been paying for the Breaking the Barriers Ball for over 18 years. The UGBC has a constant budget, while students expect a bigger event every year. The budget has to benefit everyone," Denice said.
Of his personal endeavors, Montenegro said, "In my deptartment [in the UGBC], we're working on getting the e-syllabus system up and running and on a creative way to get the PEPS system up-to-date."
Denice and Montenegro have both held positions in the UGBC prior to the election. Denice most recently held the position of chief of staff, while Montenegro worked as assistant director of University Affairs. Denice believes the duo's experience will help them hit the ground running when they take office in the spring. He cited "knowing who we have to meet, knowing the process, and getting to see a lot of what Jenn and Dan did" as advantages provided by his UGBC involvement. "This will not be my first time attending budget meetings and planning events," Denice said. "It will be a great way to start off."
Denice and Montenegro intend to remain in Boston through the summer, when they hope to put their plans into motion.
"We'll be working [over the summer] to reevaluate the UGBC's role in campus activities. We want students to have more of a say in the implementation of the Master Plan, and we'll be getting started on a lot of our long term projects," Denice said. "By the end of this semester, our goal is to put out a pilot for the flat screen notification system. We want to have one or two on campus by the time we leave for the summer."
Denice cited the relationship between students living off campus and the Allston-Brighton community as the biggest challenge he will face in the upcoming year.
"We want to appoint a position as off campus liaison. They will attend all the Allston-Brighton community meetings and act as a face for the student body to go back to," Denice said. "We hope that in September when sophomores move in, they'll have a working understanding of what it means to live off-campus, what their rights are, et cetera."
Montenegro also recognized the challenges he and his running mate will face in the coming year.
"It's a challenge every year to incorporate as much student voice as possible. With some initiatives, it's always going to be an uphill battle, but we've developed the relationships we need to succeed," Montenegro said.
Despite any challenges they may face, Denice and Montenegro have plenty of plans waiting to be put into action. One of these plans includes some reorganization of the UGBC structure. Denice said he intends to move the finance positions, currently under the jurisdiction of the operations department, under the umbrella of the executive department. Denice also hopes to form a new Superfan committee that will publicize events and generate enthusiasm for BC athletics.
Other future ventures include the creation of a women's issue council that will increase communication between women's groups on campus and improvement of the current diversity core requirement.
With regard to changes that need to be made to diversity issues at BC, Montenegro said, "I figure it's more cultural diversity in general [than just the cultural diversity core]. We're going to be working with the Dr. Anderson Franklin, the Nelson chair at BC, to promote diversity among the students, staff, and the administration. We're going to reevaluate the cultural diversity core so that it addresses what it's supposed to be addressing."
The victory was proceeded by some rather unusual events during campaigning activities on Thursday. Former presidential candidates Rhick Bose, A&S '09, and Anand Savani, A&S '09, were observed posting and distributing fliers in the Quad and in and around computer stations, which, during voting days, are considered places of polling. The fliers consisted of the pre-edited letter to the editor submitted to The Heights and was titled, "Read what The Heights won't tell you."
"I distributed it in a lot of places, but I'm not really sure what constitutes a polling place," Bose said. "I know O'Neill is a technically polling place, but I'm not sure how many kids actually go there to vote. We didn't distribute just there, we distributed everywhere."
In their letter, Bose, Savani, and the other signatories - all former candidates themselves - attributed comments to Denice and Montenegro. According to the letter, Denice and Montenegro said that Editor-in-Chief Pilar Landon failed to control The Heights endorsement meeting, "while the former editor-in-chief shouted at the duo over an unimportant distinction." Denice and Montenegro were the only non-board members present at the endorsement meeting.
Immediately after the letter's distribution, Denice sent out a Facebook message to his supporters asserting while he was aware of Bose's intent to distribute the letter, he had no involvement in it, was unaware of its contents, and had specifically asked that his and Montenegro's names not be used. He said that in no way did the views expressed in the letter reflect the views of his campaign and asked voters to ignore the letter when making their voting choice.
Bose and Savani, though, displayed their support of Denice and Montenegro's campaign in a Facebook message sent to the members of the Rhick Bose and Anand Savani - UGBC 0908 group. The message read, "[Rhick and Anand] support the campaign of Chris Denice & Alejandro Montenegro. Their huge banner on the Comm Ave. garage is ours, turned over, and painted with their names on it - a sign of solidarity with their campaign." The duo concluded the message with a parting request: "Let's keep the dream alive and feel free to get a hold of me or Chris, Alej, or Alex Hirs, their campaign manager, with any questions." A comment on the wall of the same group made by Denice 10 minutes later said only, "solidarity."
Denice has consistently denied any involvement in or knowledge of Bose and Savani's actions.
"Rhick and Anand notified both teams that they were creating a document that they would submit to The Heights," Denice said. "Both teams acknowledged that was fine, both decided not to get involved. The letter was their own opinion, not Alejandro's or mine. They have chosen to do that, and it was their own prerogative."
Furthermore, Denice said he asked Bose and Savani to discontinue distribution of the flier. "We asked them to not be around us when they distributed the letter, because they were doing it when we were campaigning in the quad," Denice said.
Members of Phil Dumontet, CSOM '09, and Michael Sokolowski's, CSOM '09, campaign argued that Denice's statements, however, do not exonerate him from violations of the Elections Code. They pointed to Article III, Section 1, a. 1 of the Election Code which states that "the candidate shall be held responsible for all work undertaken on his/her behalf including but not limited to his/her campaign staff, anyone wearing his/her campaign T-shirt, any campaign e-mails sent, with or without the candidates knowledge, etc."
A document of complaint attempting to link Bose and Savani to Denice and Alejandro was brought to the Elections Committee by Dumontet's campaign. This document discussed not only the purported connection between Bose and Savani with the Denice and Montenegro campaign but also the rebuttals to Denice's replies to the challenges, six Elections Code violations Dumontet said Denice and/or Bose committed, and claims of vote tampering by illicit campaigning and libel against the Dumontet campaign.
The Elections Committee deemed itself unfit to handle the claims made by the document, and requested that the Office for the Dean of Student Development (ODSD) to pass judgment on the alleged violations.
A letter addressed to the deans and signed by Joshua Darr, co-chair of the Elections Committee and A&S '09, questioned the possible connection between Bose, Savani, and the campaign of Denice and Montenegro. "Though Mr. Bose and Mr. Savani have officially endorsed Mr. Dumontet's competitors, Christopher Denice and Alejandro Montenegro, they were not expressly advocating for that campaign or wearing their T-shirts."
But connected or not, Darr also addressed the setbacks Bose and Savani's actions may have created for Dumontet's campaign. "The distribution of slanderous and unapproved literature in the Quad yesterday was an egregious break of the public trust," he wrote. In the letter's conclusion, Darr said, "We believe that the integrity of this election has been compromised, and that Mr. Bose and Mr. Savani should be held accountable for their actions and their effect on this election."
Darr goes on to say that despite "clear evidence on Facebook that Mr. Savani was supporting Mr. Denice and Mr. Montenegro," the Elections Committee cannot regulate personal pages. The complaints were put forth for consideration by the deans, Darr said, because "the Elections Code was not designed to withstand egregious third-party interference on voting days. … In this case, the code fell short of being able to rectify the damage done."
It is unclear whether Darr's letter represented merely this personal opinion or the opinion of the entire Elections Committee.
The ODSD proceeded to remand judgment on claims relating to the election back to the Elections Committee. "Basically, the Elections Committee sought guidance from the ODSD," said Paul Chebator, Interim Dean for Student Development. "We took all the information, sat down with Dean Yoder [associate dean for student development], Dean Miceli [assistant dean for student development], and Jessica Kenerson [Elections Committee advisor and LGSOE '08]. Our first conclusion was that there were two issues: The first were the allegations of defamation against The Heights by letter. It was clear that the Elections Committee had no jurisdiction over these allegations. Other allegations were against one of the candidates. That became an EC issue. We asked the Elections Committee to separate the two issues out and look at the ones that would impact the electoral code."
A letter signed by Kenerson that addressed the complaints remanded back to the Elections Committee said, "After talking with the two current teams as well as Rhick Bose, Anand Savani, and Katherine Buck, it was decided in a meeting on Thursday, Feb. 21, 2008 that the letter in question did not violate the Elections Code."
The EC formed its decision based on the fact that the letter did not attack or address the platforms of either team, but rather questioned the endorsement made by The Heights. Furthermore, the EC pointed to the fact that Dumontet and Denice told the authors of the letter that they did not want to have any association with its publication and were unaware of its content.
The EC said that the fact that supporters of both teams had signed off on the letter made it hard to conclude that the letter was negatively directed at Dumontet. To address other complaints alleged by the Dumontet campaign, the EC found no slanderous or libelous statements against either team in the letter, and said that Bose could not be considered a supporter since he was wearing a green shirt under his own campaign shirt.
Denice said he didn't think Bose and Savani's letter had any impact on the results of the election.
"It's being presented an anti-Phil-and-Soko kind of thing - I don't think it's anti-anything, only pro-integrity; but if it were anti-anything, it would have to be anti-Heights," Bose said.
"There were almost 3,900 votes cast, as compared to 2,500 last year," Denice said. "There was overall dedication by both campaigns. We knocked on every door on campus, even the Mods, Rubenstein, and Edmond's. We didn't stop with the freshman class. We made sure people were well-educated. Facebook helped too. People were able to find out about the elections passively."
Though Denice maintained that Bose and Savani's letter had no impact on the outcome of the election, Dumontet disagreed and said that his supporters have urged him to challenge the outcome of the election. With a 1.8 percent margin - 141 votes - deciding the election, Dumontet said he couldn't help but wonder whether the letter's distribution was a factor in swaying voters.
"When a member of the Elections Committee declares that the 'integrity of the election has been compromised' as a result of a massive smear campaign that took place on a voting day, and nothing is done to address it, we have no choice but to reevaluate the legitimacy of such a narrow win," Dumontet said.
"If I am sanctioned for a minor infraction, such as a friend in Egypt, halfway around the world, sending out Facebook messages asking for support without my knowledge, I don't understand how the Elections Committee can fail to hold Chris and Alej accountable for the unethical, egregious violations of two of their most visible supporters on campus," Dumontet said. "Despite the rules clearly stating that 'the candidate shall be held responsible for all work undertaken on his/her behalf … with or without the candidates' knowledge,' these defamatory actions, intended to damage my campaign and boost Chris and Alej's, went unpunished."
Dumontet said among his objectives in bringing the issue to light was making sure that the Elections Committee develops mechanisms to better equip it for dealing with incidents like Thursday's.
The Elections Committee had no comment regarding the election results or the challenges made by Dumontet's campaign.
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