Image Courtesy of Wiki Commons
Election chaos has come to Princeton. Preliminary results from April 13th indicate that the BDS-aligned Referendum 3, which called on the University to stop using Caterpillar construction equipment, had failed to win a majority of student support. The election ended in a plurality vote with 44% of Princeton students voting in favor of the referendum, 40% against, and 16% abstaining.
In a dramatic reversal three hours after voting ended, the University Student Government (USG) Chief Election Manager Brian Li ’24 informed referendum opposition leaders of a change in the status of ‘abstain’ votes, potentially altering the results of the election.
Li had previously told multiple opposition leaders that for the referendum to pass, it would need a majority of all votes, including abstentions. In a March 28th text message (two weeks before referendum voting began), Li told Jared Stone ‘24, the President of Tigers for Israel, that a majority of all votes cast must be in the affirmative for the referendum to pass. According to the Chief Election Manager’s statement, the referendum would not pass given only 44% of students were in favor––below the 50% threshold.
Stone and other opposition campaigners, including Myles McKnight ‘23, Jacob Katz ‘23, and official opposition leader Reid Zlotky ‘23 understood this and other communications with Li to indicate that the referendum would need over 50% of all votes, including abstentions, to be in the affirmative for the referendum to pass. Opposition leaders claim to have planned their opposition campaign accordingly, encouraging students to either vote ‘no’ or ‘abstain’.
McKnight and Zlotky have previously written for the Tory.
Three hours after voting had ended, Li informed Stone via text that “in consultation with the parliamentarian, the handbook indicates that abstentions do *not* count against votes in the affirmative.” When Stone and Li had a call later that day, “the Chief Elections Officer (Li) doubled down on his text…[it was] deeply concerning,” Stone told The Tory.
The USG Election Handbook states that “the Chief Elections Manager shall oversee and have final responsibility for each election.” It is ultimately up to the Chief Elections Manager to decide how abstentions will be counted. At the time of publication neither USG or Li has announced whether or not the referendum passed.
On the evening of the 13th, The Daily Princetonian published an article with the headline: “Preliminary results show Caterpillar referendum passes on USG ballot.” In it, Li is quoted as saying the student body “should be of an understanding that the [election] was procedurally fair and sound.”
At least one student group claimed victory. When the vote tally was first made public, the Princeton4Palestine Instagram account associated with student groups in support of the referendum, posted saying: “VICTORY! With 1,124 votes in favor and 1,029 votes against, the Caterpillar referendum has passed successfully!” They deleted the post several hours later without an official explanation.
At least four official complaints have been sent to USG detailing what the authors consider to be an unfair process, including a formal appeal written by voting members of the USG Senate. Each objection was sent to USG President Mayu Takeuchi ‘23, Vice President Hannah Kapoor ‘23, Parliamentarian Kate Liu ‘23, and Chief Elections Manager Brian Li ‘24.
In each of the email exchanges acquired by The Tory, Li called his correspondence with Jared and others a “miscommunication,” adding that “[i]t was and remains [USG guidance] that abstentions are not to be construed as votes either in favor or against a referendum question.”
In response, Hoffman wrote to The Tory that “there was no misunderstanding. Li was crystal clear in his communication. He first said one thing, and then he said another. He changed his mind and so went the election.”
The Tory has reproduced below a summary of each objection:
Official Appeal by Voting Members of the USG Senate. Full text here.
On the evening of the 14th, four voting members of the USG Senate signed a formal appeal of the election. They judged “the conduct and decision of the [Chief Elections Manager to be] unfair and incorrect.” They recommend that “the USG either: a) abide by the representations made by the [Chief Elections Manager] during the course of the campaign and on the basis of which the campaign was conducted, b) void the referendum, or c) hold a revote with clearly communicated rules and guidelines.” The appeal was submitted by Adam Hoffman USG Treasurer and co-signed by Audrey Zhang, USG Sustainability Chair, Carlisle Imperial, USG Senate Member, and Ned Dockery, USG Senate Member.
Myles McKnight
On April 13, Myles McKnight filed an objection to USG leadership on the management of the election. Myles included a screenshot of the original text correspondence between Li and Tigers For Israel President, Jared Stone.
McKnight explained that “Tigers for Israel structured its campaign strategy, in large part, on the information Brian provided to Jared,” and therefore the election outcome could very well have been different if opposition campaigners used different messaging. McKnight cautioned the USG senate against issuing an unfounded “ex post facto change of mind.”
Li responded to McKnight’s email, deeming his text to Jared a “miscommunication” and refusing to count the abstentions as votes cast. He wrote that “[i]t was and remains [the case] that abstentions are not to be construed as votes either in favor or against a referendum question.”
McKnight wrote that Li had “clearly communicated [his] prior decision that the abstentions would be counted” and that “the claim that the decision not to count them has always stood is at best an absurdity, at worst a face-saving lie.”
His response also noted that Brian Li, as Chief Elections Manager, “has the final say as to how the [USG] Constitution bears on election matters” so his “conclusion that abstention votes would be counted” was taken as the final word by Stone, “and an entire portion of the community predicated its opposition messaging, op-ed writing, and campaigning on that conclusion.”
McKnight ended his email by asking USG to strongly consider what “precedent [they] want to set” and highlighting the “damage” done “to the trust” that the institution “held with the Jewish community––students, alumni, and family.”
Jacob Katz
In an email exchange between Jacob Katz and Brian Li on April 14th, Katz explained that “it was made extremely clear on multiple occasions that abstentions did count as part of the denominator… This was an established fact in my eyes and [in the eyes of] a very significant amount of students who campaigned with that assumption.” Katz went on to cite an in-person interaction with Li in which the USG Elections Manager had “patiently reaffirmed that abstentions counted in the denominator.”
As part of his opposition campaigning, Katz had written an article in the Daily Princetonian sharing his unique perspective on the Referendum. In his correspondence with Li, Katz explained that had abstentions been understood as not counting in the denominator, he would have been more “direct” in his op-ed to make a “much clearer call for a ‘no’.”
In response, Li acknowledged what he called “past miscommunications” and said “[i]t was and remains [the case] that abstentions are not to be construed as votes either in favor or against a referendum question.”
That “miscommunication,” Katz argued in return, was “paradigm shifting” for the opposition and led to “material changes in how voters thought about voting, how they voted, and how the votes were split among yes/no/abstain.” Katz asked for a metric to differentiate trivial from non-trivial miscommunications; at the time of this writing he is yet to hear a response.
Reid Zlotky
Reid Zlotky’s objections echoed those of McKnight and Katz and questioned the interpretation of the USG constitution’s language.
In a comment to The Tory, Zlotky pointed out that “[t]he definitions and context of the use of ‘majority of votes cast’ as opposed to ‘majority vote’ in the USG Senate Handbook and Campaign Handbook were extremely technically complex. Opposition campaigners had no choice but to take the Campaign Election Manager’s word for how votes would ultimately be counted. It’s no coincidence that The Tory and The Daily Princetonian came to different conclusions as to who won the Referendum.”
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UPDATE
USG posted an announcement on the afternoon of April 15, stating the following: “Results for Referendum Question 3 have not been certified at this time due to appeals pending before the Senate. Preliminary results are unofficial and must not be construed as being indicative of passage or failure. We will provide more information to the student body regarding the Senate’s decision and next steps in the coming week.” Full text is available here.
This story is breaking and will be updated as more information becomes available.
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