OPINION & EDITORIAL
Lack of information tarnishes elections
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Also by Joelle Parks:
- Affirmative action has no place at collegiate level (April 13, 2006)
- Local media expedite petty politics (November 29, 2006)
- Campus safety needs high priority (November 21, 2005)
- Obese must admit own fault (April 20, 2006)
- Board of Regents' new disciplinary policy overdue, welcome (December 13, 2006)
Related Stories:
- ASM: Another Student Mess (October 24, 2006)
- In Wiley we trust (November 14, 2006)
- If at first you don't succeed... (November 1, 2006)
- An unholy Union (April 18, 2007)
- Spring elections story misleading (December 12, 2006)
by Joelle Parks
Wednesday, November 1, 2006
After two disastrous student elections last semester and even more controversy this time around, the Associated Students of Madison needs to figure out what the student body already knows — that they are the collaborative body that they claim to be when it comes to elections.
After the Student Union Initiative narrowly passed two weeks ago, six members of ASM questioned the validity of the initiative and filed a lawsuit last week against the Student Election Commission. The plaintiffs claim that the information provided to University of Wisconsin students about the initiative was misleading and cites several infractions with the ASM Constitution, according to ASM member Patrick Elliot, one of the petitioners in the case.
According to David Lapidus, another of the six petitioners in the case, the misleading portion of the initiative lies in the false impression that students have complete control over non-allocable segregated fees, which is where the majority of backing for the initiative would come from. In reality, the current UW chancellor has veto power over every budget ASM approves, so the student vote is more of a suggestion than an initiative, a tidbit that many voters may not have understood.
Mr. Lapidus also said there is an ASM bylaw requiring "free and fair" elections, and added that the lack of campaign-finance regulations in ASM elections prevented that from happening. Maybe instead of dedicating the thousands of dollars spent on promoting the Union referendum, the initiative coordinators could have put the money and resources toward the actual cost of the Union renovations themselves.
The election was unfair for other reasons as well. It is slightly ironic that the first two elections last spring were hosted online by DoIT and were open over the course of several days. Anyone with access to a computer could quickly cast his or her vote. This semester though, simplicity and accessibility were not available due to the technical glitches that the system revealed. After making attempts to fix last year's mistakes, ASM introduced the failed initiative yet again this semester.
With only four polling locations on campus open for six-and-a-half inconvenient hours each day over the course of two days, the long wait was not worth the time for many students. After the Student Union Initiative failed twice last semester with votes from 22.4 percent of the student body, who actually thought that it would pass this time? Well, ASM outsmarted students and with its massive campaign effort, convinced a measly 6.59 percent of the student body to vote despite and consequently claim victory by passing both the Living Wage referendum and the Student Union Initiative.
For those who did vote, results that should have taken ASM hours to tally took days because of ASM's method of assigning multiple votes to candidates on the Scantron sheets. The new Scantron voting system was supposed to save ASM time and technical glitches, but unfortunately went awry once again. The counting machines were worthless — just like the computer system from the spring elections — and ASM was forced to tally the votes by hand.
Like many students, I am not ready to give up the extra segregated fees each year so that other students will be paid $10.23 per hour and Memorial Union and Union South will undergo renovations and reconstruction that I will never see. Despite ASM's various election faults, it's nice to know that some members are actually concerned about students and are doing something about it. Regardless of the outcome of the lawsuit, one thing is for sure, ASM needs to figure itself out.
Joelle Parks (jparks@badgerherald.com) is a junior majoring in journalism and Spanish.
Anonymous (November 1, 2006 @ 1:41am):
quit writing ... first the 92%, now this?
Anonymous (November 1, 2006 @ 3:33am):
Lapidus isn't the only person involved in campus politics.
He didn't write the complaint and was only asked to sign on last minute.
Somebody needs to realize that and question the real proponents of the complaint.
- His roommate
Anonymous (November 1, 2006 @ 6:26am):
"After the Student Union Initiative narrowly passed two weeks ago..."
Ummmm "narrowly passed"? Are you for real? That is outright misleading.
Anonymous (November 1, 2006 @ 7:42am):
Didn't the republican legislature try to amend the state constitution at least twice to ban so-called gay marriage? It failed both times, so they are now throwing it to the public to decide. I love it when what goes around, comes around.
Anonymous (November 1, 2006 @ 8:14am):
erroneous
Anonymous (November 1, 2006 @ 8:19am):
4 campus polling locations is not enough? how big is our campus? In the course of 13 hours you couldnt make a 5 minute effort to vote? lame reasoning, while i agree electronic voting would have been more convient, it not a sufficent reason that not enough students voted to ignore the results of the election, that is the nature of democracy and it only works as well as people want it too.
Anonymous (November 1, 2006 @ 8:34am):
Ok, time to give it up. We know you didn't get what you wanted in the election - that just means you should have campaigned harder. Stop making life miserable for those people who dedicated months to putting together a fair system. They did an excellent job. Nothing went wrong - all results were released within the provisions oulinted by the ASM Constitution and Bylaws, and every student who was eligible to vote was able to - whether they made the effort or not is not the concern of ASM.
Anonymous (November 1, 2006 @ 8:45am):
Uneducated? Are you telling me the College Democrats (and as much as I hate to say the College Republicans) haven't worked hard to inform voters?
Anonymous (November 1, 2006 @ 12:15pm):
SLAC is complaining now when they didn't even promote their referendum one bit this fall!
Anonymous (November 1, 2006 @ 1:43pm):
Yeah, we didn't get what we wanted in the election. Instead of campaigning harder, we should just hold 3 more votes to make sure we get the result we desire.
Anonymous (November 1, 2006 @ 1:46pm):
"Like many students, I am not ready to give up the extra segregated fees each year so that other students will be paid $10.23 per hour and Memorial Union and Union South will undergo renovations and reconstruction that I will never see."
The Living Wage referendum didn't even outline how it would be paid for. In fact, Ashok Kumar said we should just raise prices at the union. So, as of now, seg fees wouldn't go to that.
Also, you make it sound like it's ASMs fault that there was no counter to SUI's efforts. How is it the responsibility of the student government to mount an effort against a proposal on the ballot? They were simply running the election and had nothing to do with it. They can't force an argument against it if it's not there.
Anonymous (November 1, 2006 @ 1:54pm):
For your next column I fully expect you to say "Mark Green supports stem cells." Or wait! How about "Mark Foley cracks down on child sex predators." Yeah, that sounds right up your alley!
Anonymous (November 1, 2006 @ 5:39pm):
"Mark Foley cracks down on child sex predators."
He did. He was chair of the "House Caucus on Missing and Exploited Children." He sought to protect children by holding them at night.
I vote for "The sky is orange" for the next article.
