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Response to election debacle requires patience

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by Badger Herald Editorial Board

Thursday, March 30, 2006

When an institution fails to successfully carry out the most basic element of the democracy that it purports to be, an election, the highest level of accountability must be applied. And so, in the wake of the Associated Students of Madison's decision yesterday to cancel an in-progress election we, like so many of you, stand with our pitchforks at the ready.

But our weapons must remain just that: at the ready. To act swiftly and condemn without due meditation or investigation would be to reduce the campus' level of intellect to that of a Caesarian mob.

Rather, we encourage all those disgruntled by yesterday's colossal error to join us in sifting and winnowing toward the truth behind these election irregularities. With few facts known as of now, any assignment of blame would be wholly capricious and any retributive actions would be wholly premature.

Some on campus have shown a complete lack of restraint, chanting obscenities before ASM's bombshell press conference even concluded yesterday. Others have reverted to their most familiar pastime and engaged in vitriolic protest.

But those actually concerned with the truth of the matter and finding a genuine solution that cannot necessarily be reduced to a picket sign slogan will join this Board in taking a deep breath, allowing the facts to come to the surface and then — and only then — calling for the appropriate actions.

There can be little question but that accountability must be applied for an error as egregious as the one that has shut down a democratic election. Moreover, come time, such mechanisms of accountability must be swift and harsh.

But today it is important to remember that both the judge and jury must always precede the executioner.

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Anonymous (March 30, 2006 @ 7:21am):

Well...the judge and the jury better hurry up and get their facts straight because it seems to me that they have made decisions about how 'invalid' candidate votes are but as soon as SLAC holds a rally and chants obscenities, these so called student leaders give in and decided that the referenda vote are still 'valid.'

How can one part of the ballot be valid while the other invalid when it all has to do with whether someone's vote was counted. Whether someone's vote was counted twice.

Anonymous (March 30, 2006 @ 1:55pm):

In response to the first comment:
You can't write in a response to the referenda. The problem was that ballots where multiple write-in's were submitted failed. Many students opted to choose someone on the ballot once their write-in votes caused an error, just so it would go through.

Since there was no option to write in a choice for the referenda, this did not happen. Everyone was allowed to vote as they intended (either for or against.)

Anonymous (March 30, 2006 @ 4:06pm):

They didn't give in as soon as SLAC started shouting obscenities for several reasons.

First, SLAC wasn't everyone that was there. The majority of pissed off students are not SLAC members and have no intention to be. Many were individual candidates or independent supporters of the living wage initiative.

Second, they didn't "give in" until nearly 6 hours later, after flip-flopping and internal debates.