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Judiciary decides in favor of election chair
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by James Davison
Tuesday, October 19, 2004
A petition against the Student Election Commission, which prevented the Student Services Finance Committee election results from being released, was dismissed in a unanimous decision rendered by the Student Judiciary Monday.
However, the decision also ordered the dismissal judgment not take effect for either two weeks or until the Student Judiciary grants or denies any appeal that the petitioner, former Student Council Chair Austin Evans, may file.
Evans stated in the petition that SEC chair Shelton Roulhac violated a resolution passed while he was chair, which is designed to stagger elections of newly created SSFC elected seats.
Evans claimed one SSFC seat should be a one-year term and the other a two-year term, but in this election, both elections were run as one-year seats.
In his defense during the Student Judiciary hearing Friday, Roulhac claimed he used others’ advice and the ASM constitution as his guide in creating election ballots.
Evans responded, saying that the resolution in question was passed as a referendum that the entire student body passed, which gives it the power to amend the ASM constitution.
The decision of the Student Judiciary stated the student body was not fully aware of every implication in the resolution Evans used in his arguments. The decision also stated Roulhac had no way of obtaining knowledge of every past resolution if they were not specifically written into the ASM constitution or by-laws.
“To say so otherwise would create a dangerous sphere of uncertainty behind the process of implementing vague, conflicting and ambiguous referenda into law,” the decision said.
In a phone interview, Evans said he intends to appeal the decision.
“[The decision] is basically going against the student body, which can’t stand,” Evans said, adding the defense played tricks and the court “bought it, which is unfortunate.”
ASM academic affairs committee chair Ashok Kumar, who dealt with delayed elections while running for his position, said most cases only waste time and stall the entire election process. “[Evans’ petition] was absolutely not necessary,” Kumar said, adding ASM could be making more positive changes on campus rather than hearing frivolous cases.
Kumar said he suggests trivial cases should be dismissed immediately rather than slowly go through the whole judiciary process.
Most cases are brought by an elite class of students, according to Kumar.
“A slew of [Student Judiciary cases] … are brought up by the same people. It is almost as if they want their name on the cases,” he added.
Roulhac could not be reached for comment.
In addition to the Evans case, the freshman Student Council election results are not finalized due to two pending cases, according to Student Judiciary Chief Justice Nathaniel Romano.
Anonymous (October 19, 2004 @ 7:59am):
The frosh results aren't finalized, but the preliminaries were posted. Jon Kuether was the top voter getter.
But there's a reason they aren't finalized yet. Chief Justice Romano is up on impeachment charges tomorrow night and he, as presiding justice in one of the disputed cases, scheduled the case to determine whether the results are final for AFTER his impeachment trial tomorrow night.
Romano is doing every little corrupt thing he can to keep the freshmen representatives from voting at that meeting.
Anonymous (October 19, 2004 @ 8:01am):
Looks like Jennie Johnson and Brad Vogel are getting screwed by not only Evans now, but by the SJ too. Wow - big surprise. Can somebody stop these assinine games sometime soon?
Anonymous (October 19, 2004 @ 9:41am):
where were the preliminaries posted at?
Anonymous (October 19, 2004 @ 4:15pm):
outside the ASM office on the bulletin board
5th Floor Mem Union
Anonymous (October 19, 2004 @ 4:16pm):
This article made no sense. As someone interested in the issue and familiar with ASM, I found the message completely indecipherable.
The rhetoric attributed to each side seems randomly distributed througout with no attempt to make any sense of it.
Anonymous (October 19, 2004 @ 6:28pm):
To clarify: The SJ said Evans' complaint was worthless. But they're keeping the SSFC election results from being known for two more weeks, though, in case Austin would want to appeal.
Essentially, Evans and the SJ are preventing the SSFC candidates from assuming their seats and denying students proper representation on the SSFC.
