Two vacant Student Council seats, which have been embroiled by controversy and internal debate for weeks, will continue to stand vacant as of a meeting Wednesday.
In the Associated Students of Madison meeting, members took up legislation to appoint Beth Huang and Niko Magallon to council, in which both fell short of the 20-vote majority required to gain seats.
The vote comes one week after ASM Chair Allie Gardner ruled the previous vote to affirm Huang and Magallon was null and void according to the interpretation of the constitution, which requires a two-thirds majority of the entire sitting council vote in favor of the appointment.
The two previously removed elected officials were selected for consideration by council as the result of Nominations Board’s processes of evaluating applicants.
In open forum, Beth Huang spoke in support of the Nominations Board process, saying she and Magallon have been held to the strictest interpretation of ASM election policies, constitutional provisions and Student Judiciary precedents.
“We have been selectively held to the strictest implementations … where people have generally gotten off the hook,” she said. “[It’s put] us through an immense personal struggle.”
Student Council then debated the proper voting procedure in the event the vote would be for both nominees taken together, which some representatives, including Dan Posca, said would not allow members to fully express their opinions on the matter.
Nneka Akubeze, a member of council, also questioned Gardner’s decision not to recognize Magallon as a voting member of the body, saying that while the decision to appoint the two officials was nullified last week, interpretation of the constitution is not a matter for Student Council and the interpretation on filling vacancies should go to Student Judiciary.
A vote to overrule the chair’s decision failed among representatives.
Rep. Andrew Bulovsky, who spoke in support of only Huang’s appointment, said his motion to divide the vote was simply a request to vote exactly the way he wanted to vote.
“I’m literally being shackled onto my votes,” he said.
After a vote to divide the question on Huang and Magallon’s appointments carried, Gardner prefaced the vote by encouraging representatives to vote either in favor or against the legislation, saying that abstentions would be equivalent to a negative vote.
Gardner also said during the two months the ordeal has lingered in council, the politics of the situation have not gone unnoticed outside of ASM and secret ballots would be used.
“We have focused a lot of debate on the merits of individuals, rather than the process of Nominations Board,” she said. “The personal tensions [are] mounting here.”
Officials voted 17 in favor with eight abstentions on Huang’s appointment, while Magallon received 17 votes in favor, with seven abstentions and one illegal vote, both falling three votes short of the majority of the sitting members required.
For the time being, the seats will remain vacant until Nominations Board fills them.
Members also voted on appointing a secretary for the body, drawing on nominees Maria Giannopoulos, a freshman representative, and Rep. Clay Thomas.
With a vote of 12 in favor of Thomas and six in Giannopoulos’s favor, Thomas will fill the vacant office.
