The election commission of the Black Students Association (BSA) may have improperly handled the ballot count of this year’s presidential election, according to outgoing publicity chair Christopher J. Lee ’06.

In an e-mail Friday to the Black Men’s Forum (BMF) list, Lee—a member of the original election commission—wrote that the tie that sparked a runoff election for the BSA presidency may not have been a tie at all.

Lee wrote that the original ballot count for the presidential election was not 63-63, but 64-63 in favor of candidate Zachary D. Raynor ’05, who ended up losing to Lawrence E. Adjah Jr. ’06 in a runoff election.

“Thus, the question was broached as to how we could make it appear that a 63-63 tie occurred,” wrote Lee in the e-mail. “The answer we came up with was to go back to the ballots, particularly those in favor of Zachary. Hence, after the 64-63 count had been established for more than three hours, we went back into his stack and removed one more ballot, calling it questionable.”

In his e-mail, Lee also accused fellow election commission members of “severe verbal abuse” and “physical belligerence.”

Lee could not be reached for comment yesterday.

In response to Lee’s allegations, the other members of the election commission—including outgoing president Olamipe I. Okunseinde ’04—sent an e-mail to the Association for Black Harvard Women (ABHW) list.

While they confirmed there was discussion about the legitimacy of some ballots in the e-mail, the election commission members wrote that the tie “was unanimously confirmed by all members of the Election Commission present in the room, one of those individuals being Christopher Lee, on Friday after the initial elections.”

“Admittedly, the clarity of the ballots should have been discussed by the entire Election Commission at the beginning of the meeting...For these mistakes, we sincerely apologize,” they wrote.

Beside Okunseinde, who is also a Crimson editor, this e-mail was signed by BSA board members Anne M. Morris ’04, Alana V. Davis ’06, Yata P. Kande ’04, Jennifer N. Wynn ’06 and Natalya S. Davis ’04.

Okunseinde said she was disappointed in the manner in which Lee went about addressing the black community.

“Lee chose to not be present at an important meeting held to discuss issues concerning elections and neither did he discuss his concerns within the entire Commission before addressing the entire community,” wrote Okunseinde in an e-mail to The Crimson yesterday.

She said Lee’s accusations of abuse were unsubstantiated.

“These accusations by Christopher Lee are what saddens me the most about the entire situation...I have full faith in [election commission members’] maturity and responsibility that they would not treat anyone—let alone a fellow Board member—in such a manner,” wrote Okunseinde.