I am concerned about the state of the Associated Students of the University of California elections. While the ASUC Senate has appointed some competent people recently, some of the senators, notably some members of Student Action, do not understand the situation. I worry they do not appreciate the logistics of 10,000 students voting. Even when everything is planned ahead of time there can still be problems.
This year has gotten off to a rocky start to say the least. In a normal year, an Elections Council chair is selected by the eighth senate meeting of the fall semester. The chair then can look for other people to help run the elections. Jennifer Yazdi was confirmed as Elections Council chair late in the fall. With the architects of the elections of years past having graduated, experience was in short supply. The fall semester also opened with the idea of online voting, in which students could vote on their own computers at home. While organizing an election online has never been tried, it could have been worked out with all the time available. Some of the senators did not share this optimism. In December, after a technical briefing on the details of an online election, senators informally voted 7-5-5 in support of online elections with changes to the bylaws.
January came and Yazdi resigned as Elections Council chair. This left the elections without a leader and without effective planning. Then the search for a replacement began. After sidesteps like nominating Adam Malinowski for the chair, who had ties to Student Action party leader Suken Vakil, they finally found someone who would take the difficult job.
Jessica Wren, a junior transfer, came on the scene as Elections Council chair. Even though she would have to plan an election in five weeks, instead of the normal five months, the senate thought she only deserved $1,200 of the normal $1,500 stipend. Leslieann Cachola, who helped chair the elections last year before her graduation, was hired as a consultant for $3,500. While some senators were worried about paying so much to a person who was not a student, they had no other feasible choice. They could have voted to outsource the entire election, but that would have been expensive, especially considering the short timeframe.
Appointing Wren and Cachola was the best possible choice in the situation. Voting to push back the elections by two weeks to April 25-27 was another smart move. It made sense from a logistical point of view after such a late start. The change also accommodated students who would be celebrating religious holidays, particularly Passover. However, some senators and Executive Vice President Anil Daryani disagreed as to what margin was needed to officially change the date. With a simple majority vote of 11, the date was pushed back. After Daryani filed a Judicial Council suit against the motion and President Manny Buenrostro vetoed the change to the election date, the issue was far from settled.
When the senate reconsidered the election date change a week later, they were still divided. They failed to override the veto by two votes, 12-5-1, with the opposition being lead by certain Student Action senators. Why would they vote against moving the date? Their argument that the constitution prohibited their action was immaterial, since their vote could legally change it. The only other attempt at an explanation I heard was they wanted to keep the pressure on the elections team. They argued that if the elections were planned for the earlier date they could be pushed back if there were problems. I don’t think they need to put any more pressure on the elections team. Not selecting a chair before the bylaw-mandated deadline, dragging their feet at finding a replacement after she resigned, being vague about whether they still wanted online elections, and then landing five months of work in the lap of the Elections Council chair with a five-week deadline is at the very least putting pressure on people.
Of course, the whole debate in the senate about when the elections would be held is irrelevant. Elections Council chair Wren said she will set the dates to April 25-27.
Now we are just seven weeks away from an election. The best thing the senate can do is fill the vacancies on the Judicial Council. Three of the justices’ terms have expired and their seats are empty. Half of those currently on the council have never experienced an election. It is important to have a full council and preferably an experienced council because they rule on campaign rules, violations, and election issues. When considering that the senate took over 20 weeks to fill three positions, I do not hold out much hope that they can confirm justices in any short period of time.
Before you push the whole issue aside as government inefficiency, remember it is your money at work. Elections originally had about $50,000 budgeted, and they will be looking for more money. If everything does fall apart, the elections will have to be rerun, costing twice as much as they should have the first time around. I really hope the elections will work out. Right now it is in the hands of a few people who have a lot more work than they imagined.
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