USAC EVP CANDIDATES
Daily Bruin File Photo
Evan Okamura
Daily Bruin File Photo
Susan M. Sheybani
SOURCE: USAC Election Board
By Scott B. Wong
Daily Bruin Reporter
What began as a three-candidate race is now down to two.
Endorsement hearings for the position of external vice president
of the Undergraduate Students Association Council held Monday in
Moore 100 yielded a surprising announcement from a current council
member.
Steve Davey, USAC facilities commissioner, withdrew his
candidacy for EVP due to personal reasons during his opening speech
and quietly walked off the stage.
“This is not my role; this is not my position,” he
said.
The other two candidates, Evan Okamura and Susan M. Sheybani,
fielded questions from 12 student groups, including the African
Student Union, Asian Pacific Coalition and La Familia.
Okamura, a third-year political science student, based his
opening statement around the theme of bridging the gap within USAC
and emphasized the importance of an in-house candidate.
“We’re half-way through the year,” Okamura
said. “There’s really no time for someone else to come
in.”
Currently, Okamura is the chief of staff in the EVP office. He
has also served as chair of the National Asian Pacific Coalition,
which granted him a seat on the board of directors of the United
States Student Association.
Sheybani, a senior transfer student in her second year at UCLA
who is studying political science, was vice president of the
Associated Student Government at Saddleback Community College.
She interned in Washington, D.C. earlier this year, where she
gained experience in public policy and lobbying. But she said
lobbying is not the best means of achieving students’
goals.
“You need a strong base of support on campus first,”
she said. “Then you can take it to the state and national
level.”
“I’m here for the students,” Sheybani said,
“to help them achieve their goals.”
During the hearings, candidates were given four minutes for
opening statements, then each student group asked one question of
both candidates. The hearings ended with closing remarks from the
candidates.
Election Board officials said they are fighting the clock to
inform students about this week’s special election.
According to Alex Kaplan, chair of E-Board, special elections
generally yield a lower turnout. With the relatively short notice
of this election, a small pool of candidates, and the fact that
this will be the first online election at UCLA could result in a
poor voter turnout.
Personal written statements from the candidates, along with a
pop-up page reminding students to vote, will be available through
the “my.ucla” Web page, which Kaplan anticipates should
be up before Thursday.
Since this is a special election, Kaplan said the process will
not follow traditional USAC elections.
“Usually in the primary election, if a candidate does not
carry the majority of the votes, a runoff is held,” Kaplan
said. “But in this case, whoever gets the most votes
wins.”
He explained some logistics of the online election.
“With off-campus computers, you will only be able to vote
once with your student ID number,” he said. “Two people
cannot vote on the same computer within five minutes of each
other.”
The E-Board plans to monitor off-campus voters by checking IP
address ““ the internet protocol identifier ““ of
computers where the votes are originating from.
“This is done so people don’t vote in large
quantities,” Kaplan said.
Had Davey run and been elected, he would have been forced to
resign as facilities commissioner because students cannot hold two
USAC positions simultaneously, said Mike Cohn, E-Board advisor.
But because the election will not be certified until after Dec.
1, the halfway mark of the term, USAC would have to appoint a new
facilities commissioner rather than holding another special
election, according to its bylaws.
Davey said he originally decided to run because he had the
support of people he worked with on council for the past two
years.
He attributed his withdrawal to time factors and family
concerns.
“My first job is to be a student; my second job is to be a
loving son and brother to my family,” Davey said.
“I’m not going to sacrifice academic concerns for an
uphill student government election at this point in the
quarter.”