Christopher Geanakos | News Editor
geanakc@imail.losrios.edu
Ballot counting for the district-wide student trustee election was temporarily suspended April 23, pending a district investigation into an American River College voting booth that stayed open two hours longer than other campuses, according to the Los Rios Community College District Associate Vice Chancellor of Communications and Research, Susie Williams.
“Normally a district-wide election, all of the campuses hold the election within the same time frame,” Williams said.
Los Rios School District campuses were instructed to hold elections from 9 a.m. —7 p.m. April 21-22. Williams said that ARC stayed open until 9 p.m. on April 21, giving the ARC campus a longer time to vote than other campuses were afforded.
“We just want to see if that two-hour window could have possibly had an impact on the election results,” said Williams, who believes the voting irregularity was an innocent mistake.
Williams’ comments helped explain the April 23 afternoon announcement from Los Rios Community College District Vice Chancellor for Education and Technology Bill Karns that “due to a suspicion of election irregularities, ballot counting has been suspended until after an investigation.”
Brandon Kleine, a Folsom Lake College student who is running for the trustee position, believes the mistake may produce drastic effects.
“There were a significant number of votes cast during that two-hour period,” Kleine said. “I left American River College at about 7:15 that first night, and there was a line going to the door, so I know a lot of votes where cast at that point.”
Kleine believes that the constituency of students who voted during the period between 7-9 p.m. was different than those who had been voting during the day. He said this could also have some effect on the election.
According to Williams it could be weeks before the situation is resolved.
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