All good things to those who wait
The USUSA Executive Council recently decided to call a special vote to see if students will add the position of Student Alumni Association president as a voting member of the executive council for the 2016-17 school year.
As far as we’ve heard, the vote is planned to take place before the end of the semester, though there are less than two weeks left, which means it would either happen sometime during dead week or finals week.
It’s not so much that we care about whether this position is added or not. Some of us may be in support of the change, while others might not. However, we find the way it’s happening most concerning.
This year, there was quite a stir after the normal election, where six changes were grouped as one voting item, leading with taking the slash out of USUSA. More significant changes were listed later on, including taking power from the student hearing board to punish student body officers and giving it to the executive council, as well as removing the Senate Pro Tempore position from the executive council.
USUSA President Doug Fiefia said he didn’t want to call a special election, because, “How do we go back and tell those people (who voted) that their votes don’t count?”
He went on to say that based on their experience last year, if they were to run a special election, “the voting turnout is a lot less.”
For these reasons, the changes on the ballot were approved and no further action was taken, despite a petition from some students.
But that’s part of why this new move doesn’t make sense to us.
The argument for having the election this semester is so that next spring someone can run for this position and be elected by the student body. However, in the USUSA president’s charter, it says, “The president calls the regular (USUSA) elections at the beginning of spring semester, and any special elections as necessary.”
As far as we can tell, this legislation does not limit “necessary” special elections to spring semester, which would mean that the 2015-16 USUSA president, Trevor Olsen, could call a special election in the fall.
Furthermore, the decision to add this position happened almost a month ago. Why wait more than a month to have the special election? Especially if it is during finals week.
According to the minutes, Zoe Fairbairn, the programming vice president, suggested that the change should take place in the 2016 election but was outvoted. She was the only voting member of the council to oppose the change.
When it was decided at the March 24 executive council meeting that this would come to a vote before students, the idea was to advertise the election and give students plenty of advance notice before the end of the semester.
Nevertheless, we do not feel it has been well advertised, nor that it is appropriate to have the current student body vote on something so far in advance.
If there were to be an election right now, only about half of the students voting would be around to see the result of their vote in action in fall of 2016. Not to mention, the council who approved this change is technically no longer in office, and the newly-elected council will preside at the executive council meeting Tuesday at 4 p.m.
Students’ lives are crazy at the end of the semester. If voter turnout is low in the middle of a semester, it would be even lower at this point in the year. There is no reason this vote shouldn’t wait until next school year.
We ask that the student body and officers reconsider their decision. All good things come to those who wait.