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News rules set for referendums
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by Andriy Pazuniak
Wednesday, April 19, 2006
Supporters of referendums on the Associated Students of Madison ballot next fall will have to abide by the same campaign rules as Student Council candidates, following a decision by the Student Judiciary Tuesday.
Introduced by Justice Josh Tayak, the new rule comes in the wake of the judiciary receiving a number of complaints about people defacing campaign posters and chalkings during this past semester's referendum election.
"The way the election rules are written, they only mention candidates and people campaigning for them," Tayak said. "That is a loophole that needs to be closed … [A]ll initiative and referendum campaigns should be bound by these same rules."
When speaking of defacement issues this past semester, justices specifically mentioned Student Labor Action Coalition members as culprits.
Both Tayak and Chief Justice Nick Fox said a majority of the complaints the Judiciary received were of SLAC members defacing chalkings for the Wisconsin Union Facilities Improvement Plan.
Besides the one additional rule, regulations for next fall's referendum election will by and large be the same as they were this semester, Fox said.
Additionally, certification of Student Council election results will also be delayed until April 29, after a candidate for the Law School representative seat filed a complaint over the results of the election.
Carl Williams, a write-in candidate for the Law School seat on the Council, filed a complaint against Aaron Werner, the preliminary winner for the seat, and Sachin Dawan, another candidate.
Williams alleges both Werner and Dawan inappropriately used e-mail listservs during their campaigns by not notifying Student Election Commission Chair Tim Leonard they were doing so.
The judiciary is scheduled to hear the case this Friday.
The complaint, however, will delay the certification of the Student Council election results, because the judiciary cannot make the results official until all election complaints are resolved.
Unfortunately for judiciary justices, however, delay might also mean they will have to come in the morning of the Mifflin Street Block Party to certify the election results.
Fox also said a coin flip will be used to decide the result of the Special Student representative election, which ended in a dead heat — one vote to one.
Anonymous (April 19, 2006 @ 4:25am):
Sure, it's bad form if it did happen (which is a BIG "if" in the first place), but does anyone actually believe that in any given election, a "no" written near a "yes" chalking or vice versa ever sways a person to vote one way or another?
Awesome attention whoring on the part of SEC. Now hows about they actually make themselves accountable to the students they're supposed to be serving, as well as holding DoIT's feet to the fire for their in-fucking-CREDIBLE fuckups these past two times 'round? Tayak can suck a fatty as far as I'm concerned, until he sticks his ass on the line and starts calling for a full disclosure about this past fucked up election and a call for the next elections to be handled by the lowest private sector bidder since DoIT can't throw down. Douche nozzle.
Anonymous (April 19, 2006 @ 9:53am):
"justices specifically mentioned Student Labor Action Coalition members as culprits."
Maybe the author could clarify that SLAC has yet to actually be found guilty of anything. One member was seen "in the vicinity of chalk." As far as I know, walking past chalk is not illegal. Given that the defacements used the words "tax" and "fees" and Robin Hood chalking nearby used the same color, it seems to be in bad taste for WUFIP to keep blaming SLAC for all their problems.
Was SLAC accused of these things? Yes. But hell, I could accuse Mark Guthier of killing a hooker and stashing her body in a chimney, and that doesn't necessarily make it true.
