DSG lawsuit challenges voting procedures

<p>Federal judge rejects&nbsp;the University's motion to dismiss a lawsuit regarding its retirement plan.</p>

Federal judge rejects the University's motion to dismiss a lawsuit regarding its retirement plan.

A petition has been filed with the Duke Student Government Judiciary regarding this year's presidential race.

Junior Dev Dabke, chief justice of the DSG Judiciary, wrote to The Chronicle that the Judiciary was considering a case challenging students inability to only rank some candidates. Instead, students are required to rank all of three. The Judiciary will have a hearing later this evening, he wrote, adding that they are moving as fast as “legally permissible” and as they “responsibly can.”

“We do have a petition under consideration about the election that is underway,” he wrote. “The main controversy of the case is that students have to rank all candidates for their vote to be counted. A petition has been filed challenging that requirement, i.e. asserting that students should be able to only do a partial ranking.”

Dabke has not indicated yet who filed the lawsuit. However, he noted that the hearing will take place at 8:30 p.m. tonight in the DSG boardroom. DSG Attorney General Sabriyya Pate declined to comment on the pending lawsuit. 

In addition to the lawsuit, 56 sophomores were unable to vote for several hours after the ballot opened, Pate, a sophomore, told the Chronicle. At 5:30 p.m., the voting issue was fixed, wrote presidential candidate Jackson Dellinger, a sophomore and senator for Durham and regional affairs. Pate confirmed the time that the issue was resolved.

Pate said that she had been in contact with the students who reached out to her after receiving a “you are not eligible to vote” message.

“Everybody who’s taken the initiative and reached out to me to tell me they were one of the ineligible students has been contacted,” she said. “They all know now they can vote.”

The election will not be extended to compensate for the technical issue, Pate said.

“[The affected students] have the entire night and tomorrow morning to still vote, so it really shouldn’t affect people’s opportunity to vote,” she said.

This article was updated at 7:50 p.m. to include Pate's comments.


Likhitha Butchireddygari

Follow Likhitha on Twitter

Class of 2019

Editor-in-chief 2017-18, 

Local and national news department head 2016-17

Born in Hyderabad, India, Likhitha Butchireddygari moved to Baltimore at a young age. She is pursuing a Program II major entitled "Digital Democracy and Data" about the future of the American democracy.

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