Last year, student council elections were conducted in a way that damaged the credibility of the Board of Elections, of those running for office and of the Student Council as a governing body for the undergraduate community. If students are to take the Student Council election process seriously, last year's problems must not reoccur.
Students are tired of their votes not counting. Recent elections have shown that the Board of Elections and a small appeals panel, not student voters, determine the election results.
The school is now beginning its fourth attempt to elect a Student Council president. Last year, all the votes for Student Council president were thrown out on three occasions because of candidate disqualifications and flaws in the election procedure.
The JHU chapter of the American Civil Liberties Union protested the elections on numerous occasions and continues its attempt to fight for less ambiguous election procedures and better student and staff leadership for Student Council elections.
If we are to have a fair and respectable election system, there are certain procedures that should be implemented without hesitation.
First, elections must be advertised. This seems simple but does not happen as it should. The entire student body should be notified of an election at least a month before candidates are required to submit their petitions to run for office. The Board of Elections should be required to have its Web site fully operational at the time elections are announced, and the Web site should list the positions available and detailed criteria concerning rules and regulations. After initial notification, the student body should be informed about the upcoming election at least every week before votes must be cast. Notification should occur through school-wide e-mails, posters, flyers and information sessions.
Second, candidates should not be disqualified for trivial reasons. For instance, candidate X should not be disqualified when, unbeknownst to him, his friend posts a nasty comment about candidate Y on the Daily Jolt or on an AIM profile. Such disqualifications are absolutely ridiculous.
Maybe candidates should be disqualified when they personally and purposefully spread false allegations about another candidate. However, when someone runs for a position on the student council he should be able to state why he is running and accept that some people will criticize his positions and maybe even his motives for running. Candidates should act respectfully but should also be thorough in their criticism. We don"t want to elect everyone running for office - we need to know the differences between each candidate.
Third, there should be a system of minor and major violations for candidates. We lose too many good candidates due to disqualification for use of too many posters, postering in restricted areas, campaigning outside of the designated campaign time and many other minor infractions.
In order to win an election, a candidate must practically tiptoe around campus to avoid disqualification and pray that another candidate doesn't turn him in for placing a poster on a light-post.
All the violations I have mentioned, and those of similar severity, should be considered minor violations. The penalty should be a warning and perhaps a small fine or a decrease in the amount that the candidate can spend in his election campaign. But, if the student body wants to vote for a candidate who used too many posters, so be it. Elections should be determined by the student body, not the Board of Elections. Only for major campaign violations, such as destroying another candidate's campaign materials, should disqualification be considered.
Furthermore, who censures the Board of Elections? Especially under the current conditions when the Board of Elections" rules are unclear and its disqualification guidelines are applied differently in each case, candidates need the ability to appeal Board of Elections decisions to an unbiased oversight panel. Currently, the oversight panel consists of the President of Student Council (although there is none), the Director of Student Involvement, and one other person to be appointed when appeals occur.
We must do better than an impromptu three-person panel. There should be a permanent committee of six to ten students and administrators appointed by student council each year to handle all appeals from Board of Elections decisions. After being appointed, the appeals panel should have no accountability to the student council and only a vote of the entire student body should be sufficient to remove a member of the panel.
The reforms mentioned here only begin to scratch the surface of those needed for fair and respectable Student Council election procedures. If elections continue in the flawed manner of the past, Student Council risks permanently losing its legitimacy.
- Morgan MacDonald is a senior Political Science major.
