As elections for the Undergraduate Students Association Council
draw near, partisans and potential candidates are beginning to find
creative ways to make themselves visible ““ and change the
voting system in their favor.
The Students First! dominated-council voted Tuesday in favor of
an Election Code amendment introduced by President Anica McKesey,
Internal Vice President Allende Palma/Saracho and External Vice
President Matthew Kaczmarek. The new rule is designed to limit
online voting hours in the upcoming general election to between 7
a.m. and midnight.
It also includes a provision that limits the number of
nonstudent campaigners to two per candidate per day. These changes
could affect the elections in ways that could help SF! by stifling
less established opponents who do not have such an organized group
of supporters.
The councilmembers who approved the amendment apparently did not
care about potential free speech concerns created by limiting who
can campaign, nor is it clear how limiting the voting hours would
actually make the elections more secure or inclusive.
The justification given in favor of these changes was that they
would somehow make student elections more like real-world
elections.
Students First! officers are not the only ones trying to tweak
the system.
The council’s most recent Elections Code vote comes on the
heels of an attempt by General Representative Josh Lawson to change
the way the voting system deals with the possibility of block
voting.
Block voting is a problem that could arise when students cast
their votes in semi-public places such as dormitories and Greek
houses. The proposed change would remove a time delay designed to
prevent a group of people from lining up to vote on a single
machine.
Included in Lawson’s proposed amendment was an
antidiscrimination clause that could mislead people as to what the
amendment’s real purpose is.
Both Lawson’s proposed amendment and USAC’s
Elections Code change make little sense. Whether the changes were
meant simply to generate publicity or to manipulate the system, it
is hard to see how they would improve the election process or make
UCLA a better place.
They appear to be the the latest in a string of self-serving
campaigns designed to shift political power to one faction or
another.
In the middle of all these changes UCLA students should ask how
they are going to benefit. When it comes to elections the goal of
USAC should be to increase voter turnout and make sure every
student has a fair chance to vote for whomever they want. Anything
else is superfluous or worse.
The online voting system made voting much easier, but it also
raised the spectre of several negative side effects (such as block
voting).
Those side effects should be monitored by USAC, and if there are
documented problems with the online voting system, USAC should work
to fix them ““ otherwise, students should question why so many
changes are proposed.