In the early hours of Election Day, a person hacked into the e-mail system of George Mason University, sending out an e-mail to the student body that claimed Election Day had been moved to Nov. 5.

The message was sent out at 1:16 a.m. from Provost Peter Stearns’s e-mail account. It read, “Please note that election day has been moved to November 5th. We apologize for any inconvenience this may cause you.”

Stearns addressed the issue in a later e-mail that said, “It has come to my attention early this morning that a message was hacked into the system fraudulently stating that election day has been moved. I am sure everybody realizes this is a hoax, it is also a serious offense and we are looking into it.”

A Student Government member volunteering with the Voters Van project, running students to the local voting precinct, said that volunteers already had had to field questions about the e-mail.

“We just got one guy. He was like, ‘Wait, I thought voting was tomorrow,'” freshman Nicola Anderson, a native of Scotland, said. “We’re just putting it down by saying Election Day is always the first Tuesday in November.”

Student Government President Zack Golden thinks there will be consequences for the hacker.

“Whoever did that, when they get caught, they’re going to be in major trouble,” Golden said.

Posted on November 4th, 2008 by Rachael Dickson
Filed under: Mason Votes, Top Stories