NYU Shanghai’s Student Government elections for the 2018-19 academic year descended into chaos after the school’s Facebook group, equivalent to NYUAD Forum combined with NYUAD Student Life and Room of Requirement, was engulfed by campaign posts, leaked personal messages and spirited arguments. The two finalist tickets of President/Vice President who waged online proxy wars were Millicent Wong/Tyson Upshaw and Rudy Song/Sohrob Moslehi.

NYUSH’s election system operates in a two-round voting format, with the recipients of the two highest vote counts from the first round of tickets moving on to the second round. The core of the controversy regarding this election stemmed from the abundant electioneering in NYUSH’s student Facebook group. Beginning early in the process, both tickets posted repeatedly, commenting on their own policies and those of their opponents.

This level of frequency in posting appears to have been in violation of the policies of NYUSH’s elections board, notably the statute which states that “the Elections Board encourages reasonable and non-intrusive campaigning. Filling social media groups (including but not limited to Facebook) with candidates’ posts is discouraged.”

The Wong/Upshaw ticket was in violation of elections board rules because its campaign video was longer than the two minutes stipulated, while the Song/Moslehi ticket offered to donate an Xbox if elected, which was also found to be in violation of election policies.

Both tickets also had their supporters post on their behalf in the group, describing the strengths of each candidate and encouraging others to also vote for said candidate. More irritation was caused after the posts of some candidates from previous academic years were bumped up in the group; posts from months and sometimes years earlier from the candidates’ accounts were bumped up as a way to demonstrate their prior work with the community.

Ad hominem attacks also became commonplace in many of the online disputes, not only on Facebook but also on Instagram. The candidates refrained for the most part, but other observers had no qualms about calling out candidates by name and launching public accusations.

One especially contentious moment occurred when a screenshot of a private WeChat conversation from one of the candidates was Instagrammed and then posted in the NYUSH Facebook group. The message appears to show one of the candidates agreeing with a statement ridiculing the majority of the student body. When the screenshot was first posted in the group, it was deleted. It was then reposted, this time accompanied by calls of corruption and election fixing regarding the candidate shown in the image, asserting that they had influence over the Elections Board and/or the administrators of the Facebook page.

“Your campaign has no right to complain about NYUSH bureaucracy, you are NYUSH bureaucracy,” commented one student after the photo was reposted.

Defendants of the candidate decried the posting of a private message as unethical and pleaded that the message was a joke and should not be taken seriously. Others criticized the general sentiment of the message.

A constitutional crisis was also briefly thought to be underway due to a clause from the NYUSH constitution which states that a candidate automatically wins when they receive more than 50% of the vote. No candidate received 50% of votes cast because of a high number of abstain votes, thus avoiding a further constitutional crisis.

Polls regarding the election, both serious and satirical, also filled the group. As the process dragged on, more and more students expressed their dismay and frustration with the situation.

“In a university that supposedly prides itself on its intellectual community, what we’re seeing is an absolute farce. This shift from genuinely caring about our school and all of our roles in its progression towards nothing but drama for the sake of drama needs to end,” stated NYUSH’s previous Student Government President James Bromley.

Ultimately, the ticket of Rudy Song and Sohrob Moslehi was victorious.