6:54| Four members of the Judicial Board will meet to consider the appeal on its decision to uphold the charges of the Monday, April 11 hearing. VSA Vice President for Operations Ruby Cramer ’12 will speak for the complainant, the Board of Elections (BOE). Judicial Board Chair Shouvik Bhattacharya ’11 is the respondent.

6:59| VSA Vice President for Student Life Samin Shehab ’11 is presiding. The meeting is called to order.

7:00| Cramer summarizes the reason for the appeal. The Judicial Board acted on its own initiative during the initial hearing. “The case boiled down to whether or not we had an abstention option on our referendum vote.” There was not, and that factored into the Judicial Board’s decision, but the BOE did not have a chance to defend this point in the initial hearing.

The second basis for appeal is the new evidence- a discussion in an Operations Committee meeting in which it was decided that not voting should be considered an abstention. “We have not had an abstention on our elections ballots for the last three years”, says Cramer. Therefore, she says the Judicial Board has used an inconsistent interpretation of the Bylaws.

The last basis for appeal is that the interpretation of abstentions has changed in the transition from paper ballots to electronic ballots three years ago. Blank ballots once signified abstentions. “Right now the closest thing we have to a blank ballot is not voting at all,” said Cramer.

7:07| Judicial Board members are asking questions.

Cramer clarifies the electronic voting procedure. Voting software requires voters to vote in at least one of the polls, but can leave all others blank as an abstention or not voting at all.

7:09|The room is now full and spectators are sitting on the floor.

Cramer believes a consensus was made around the fact that not voting is considered an abstention and that that is taken for granted by the student body.

7:11| Bhattacharya is responding. He believes there is no basis for appeal.

The basis for the appeal is “fancy Latin which applies to courts. We are not a court.” says Bhattacharya.

He cites a bylaw that says the Judicial Board shall have access to all documents regarding the case.

“Our mandate is not to look at a charge and then not consider random things. The whole appeal rests on the fundamental misunderstanding of the Judicial Board.”

He says the dialogue at the Operations Committee was mentioned at the hearing.

“If the precedent set by the last three years is wrong we are sorry to tell you that the process has been wrong all along. It is not our fault that the documents are not up to date. Our mandate is to look at the documents and make sure the VSA is in compliance with that,” says Bhattacharya.

“The vote is invalid, why are we dragging this out?” asks Bhattacharya. He says not including a reference to Art. VI.6.A of the Bylaws smacks of not having a reasonable interpretations.

“There is conflict of interest written large across this process” says Bhattacharya. He acknowledges that the decision is unpopular but binding.

The Judicial Board has the right to convene and find a vote unconstitutional.

7:19| The Judicial Board has no questions. Cramer will make her closing statement.

Cramer cites the rights of respondents and complainants to appeal when procedural rights are violated. Abstentions was not a focus of the hearing on Monday because respondent Alex Koren ’13 did not bring it up.

“There is no way to have a blank ballot on the form we use right now” says Cramer. In this electronic ballot, she believes a blank ballot is synonymous with a nonvote, and therefore a nonvote is an abstention. The bylaws state that blank ballots are to be considered abstentions.

7:23| The Judicial Board is asking questions.

Cramer clarifies that though the definition of abstention was discussed in the hearing, the bylaw requiring abstentions was not considered.

She adds that an “abstention box” can not be included into the candidate field. In a “yes or no” question, such as the referendum, an abstention box could have been included but not in general elections.

Leonard had contacted Cramer asking for the language used in the actual poll after the hearing had closed. That evidence was used to inform the Judicial Board’s decision. Cramer did not feel this was an appropriate time for her to defend this language.

7:30| Bhattacharya will give his closing statement.

Bhattacharya was surprised by the vote but the Judicial Board continued to explain their decision and went to great lengths to include the governing documents in their decision.

He says Cramer should have known the Judicial Board would use governing documents as the basis for its decision. He says that the act of putting in a blank ballot is not the same as not voting. He refers to Koren’s statement on Monday, in which he said that silence is not consent.

He understands that there was a gap between paper and electronic ballots, but the documents should have been updated, according to Bhattacharya.

7:33| The appeal hearing is adjourned. The Judicial Board will go into closed deliberations.