BARR SEEKS APPEAL FOR POTENTIAL ASB CODE VIOLATION, MOSS WILL NOT CHALLENGE

BJ Barr, who ran against and lost to Evan Kirkham for Associated Student Body attorney general, is challenging last week’s ASB elections.

Barr’s appeal deals with the section of the ASB constitution that only allows students at the Oxford campus to vote in the elections. Since placing the elections online, however, the DeSoto and Tupelo satellite campuses have been able to vote in the election since My OleMiss does not distinguish between the three campuses when it comes to elections.

“I am deeply concerned that students’ opinions were not accurately represented in the most recent contest because of influence by ineligible voters,” Barr said in a release. “In order to make it clear that my actions are motivated by pure desires to ensure a fair and honest elections process for the students of Ole Miss, I will remove my name from the ballot if and when my appeal is enacted.”

Barr said he spoke with election commission member Lauren Steele about Title V Section 130 in the ASB code, which states that the election commission needs a method to invalidate votes, and if a method is not secured, the election should be declared void by the commission.

“Commission member Steele clearly agrees that the commission did not devise a way to discard invalid votes, and this is just cause to void the results and hold a new election,” Barr said of the Tupelo and DeSoto votes.

Barr said it was his duty as a University of Mississippi student servant to hold student government officers accountable to the ASB constitution and code.

“My largest grievance is not that the elections commission missed this line of legislation from the beginning,” Barr said in the release. “I understand that we are all human and make mistakes. My frustration stems from the fact that the attorney general has been made aware of this problem and has yet to take action.”

Current ASB attorney general Troy Jackson said he was made aware of this and has been working on it.

“I have been meeting with the elections commission and the ASB adviser, and we are trying to figure out a way to handle this,” Jackson said. “BJ has not been involved, so he has no way to know what we are doing.”

Jackson said it was not something that could be solved in a matter of days.

“This is a logistical nightmare and difficult to solve in a few days,” Jackson said. “We have to figure out a way to run an election that sticks to the code and doesn’t conflict with IT’s set program.”

Jackson confirmed that students from Tupelo and DeSoto cast votes, but he said it would be impossible to validate the votes from those campuses.

“The sole reason I’m not allowed to see who voted for who in the election is students’ right to privacy,” Jackson said. “IT sends the votes to me, but I do not have access to whom the DeSoto and Tupelo voters voted for.”

Another issue that Jackson said came up involved some Oxford students not being able to vote.

Jackson said he spoke to IT and they said there were no problems on campus.

“They said they never had an issue come up on the servers,” Jackson said. “The only things I can think of that could have happened, would be a student forgetting to vote and saying they had a problem because they felt bad, or a problem with an Internet provider off campus.”

Jackson said he was shocked that Barr decided to appeal.

“I’m glad he brought it up, but there was a better way to handle it,” Jackson said. “All the other candidates are shocked because the students have already voted and this will add more confusion to the election process. BJ decided to do this by himself, and never spoke to me about it.”

The appeal will go to the judicial council, who will make the final call.

Kirkham received 1,600 votes and Barr received 1,285. Kirkham could not be reached for comment Sunday evening.

Cortez Moss, who ran against Taylor McGraw for ASB president and lost by 49 votes, decided not to pursue an appeal.

“After praying about it and talking it over, I feel like I’m making the best decision to not appeal and instead work with the current and elected ASB officers to find a creative solution to the problem,” Moss said. “I don’t think it is healthy to file an appeal and create something chaotic for students, who already voted. This is just the way I am and the way I was as a candidate.”

McGraw said he was happy to have Moss willing to work with the elected officers on the issue.

“I’m sure we’ll work in the next week to figure out who can vote and who can’t,” McGraw said. “I’m glad Cortez and myself can work together and continue the mission of ASB.”