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Faulty plan floors ASM
ASM leaders blame campaign strategy for constitution vote
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In the wake of a failed proposal for a new constitution, Associated Students of Madison representatives said Tuesday inadequate campaigning efforts and popular misconceptions among students contributed to their defeat.
According to ASM member John Tackett, the student government did not adequately describe the reforms the new constitution could have offered.
“Unfortunately, there were only so many of us and we wanted to work on the set of bylaws … so a lot of our (campaigning) time got sucked into that when maybe it would have been better for us to go out and speak,” Tackett said.
ASM Chair Brittany Wiegand added their time would have been better spent spreading their message and ensuring that students were aware of the checks and balances of the new government.
“I guess we could have done a better job reframing the message we were sending out,” Wiegand said.
Constitutional Committee Chair Jeff Wright added increased efforts to assure general student services fund groups their funding would be protected under the new constitution could have helped their cause as well.
Vote No Coalition member Chynna Haas agreed her group had a greater on-campus presence throughout the campaigning process, adding the grassroots efforts reached more students, several of whom reported hearing more efforts to get students to vote against the new constitution than for it.
“We sent out e-mails, spoke at meetings and did a lot of on-the-ground work (including) handing out flyers at Library Mall and outside Gordon commons and had kiosks in the union,” Haas added. “Even so, everyone said they didn’t know a lot of what was going on but they knew more about Vote No.”
Haas also said a campus-wide e-mail from the Vote Yes campaign, which included an inaccurate list of student groups endorsing their stance, may have caused the Vote Yes campaign to appear less legitimate to students.
ASM member Kurt Gosselin added there have been several allegations against the Vote No coalitions regarding campaigning violations that may have given them an unfair advantage.
The Vote No coalition violated campaigning laws, according to UW freshman Kelsey Macomber, by illegally promoting their stance in the dorms, a violation known as “dorm storming.”
Macomber said a Vote No coalition member went door to door down her hallway at Witte Residence Hall handing out pamphlets and encouraging residents to vote against the constitution to prevent too much power from being placed in the hand of the proposed president.
“I went to the debate last week, so I knew there was more to the issue,” Macomber said. “He just made it seem so black and white, when it really wasn’t, but my roommate didn’t know much about it and was leaning towards no based on what he said.”
Though no official allegations have been filed, Student Elections Commissions Chair Katherine Tondrowski said the committee has five days to gather evidence and decide if an appeal of Tuesday’s election results would be in the best interest of the student body.
However, Wright said an appeal was unlikely due to the margin of the vote.
“It’s unfortunate. I think we did a very good job of playing by the rules, but that’s what happens,” Wright said. “My guess is nothing is going to be done of this or made of this.”
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Seriously, it’s not like this thing was won by five or six votes. It was a landslide. Even if there was dorm storming taking place, how many votes could that potentially garner? More than a thousand? Sounds like sour grapes to me. The Vote Yes folks, who are good people with good intentions, know better than that.
Good people with good intentions? Really now Kyle, a week ago you suggested they were conservatives hell bent on destroying student rights.
I wish the framers of the new constitution would look to the flaws in the document rather than the flaws in their political strategy, that would be way more productive and help us get a new constitution ASAP
O come on Gosselin. The UW students have spoken and they do want a new Constitution. That is insane. If you manage to get another vote set up, the students will strike it down by an even larger margin. Let it go already.
More political whining. its starting to get really old. ASM does not work in its current structure, nor would it have worked with the new structure. ASM need to realize that restructuring the current system will not work. Students need a different form of leadership that does away with the political elitists. Your government doesn’t work, stop trying to force it.
Seriously, ASM is embarrassing itself by pursuing these “allegations.” You guys LOST, and lost hugely. Leave it the fuck alone.
ASM IS USELESS. We need the Pail and Shovel Party back!!
Isn’t that just like ASM? Lose an election, claim the other side cheated. Next we’ll see the results of the election thrown out so ASM can hold another vote. And when they lose that one too, they’ll invent another reason to throw it out and rig a third vote in their favor. That’s what they did on Union South, that’s what they’re trying to do here.