“While I know that Geoff retracted the request for students to join the club on his behalf, I was still bothered by the fact that Bash, a Republican, was trying to manipulate the Democrats’ election from the outside,” she added.
Kastner said, however, that she did not expect the e-mail to affect the outcome of the election.
Marcie B. Bianco ’02, the current Harvard College Democrats president, wrote to the council general list following Bash’s message.
“You must be a Democrat—a dues-paying one—to vote,” she wrote.
Bianco decried any attempts to influence the election.
“I think it’s pathetic that someone would want to join an organization just to vote in an election,” she said in an interview.
“It won’t have any effect on the election—John is separate from the College Democrats and he has no bearing on them,” Bianco said.