After passing a new constitution in the middle of spring semester, the newly renamed Student Government Association (SGA) passed a set of bylaws on Tuesday that now allows them to operate fully.
The constitution was written in a way that forced the SGA to convene twice before it could officially pass the bylaws and form the committees that carry out its operations. This bureaucratic delay, along with SGA's decision to reestablish the Committee on Student Elections (CSE), would officially push the freshman elections into late October.
However, at Tuesday's SGA meeting, the members voted to form an ad-hoc committee that will allow the election to occur within a minimum of about three weeks.
Members have acknowledged that this process has been artificially expedited, but that it is important that the freshmen do not continue to go without representation in student government. Additionally, some of the newly formed SGA committees would be effectively defunct without the freshman representatives required to make quorum.
According to several SGA members, the delays in freshman elections and general bylaw reassessments have made for a rocky start to the fall semester.
"The new constitution was designed to be a running document and it doesn't outline any stipulations for the start-up, so obviously there are going to be growing pains," SGA President Prasanna Chandrasekhar.
"The problem is that we've never started this much from scratch before, so when it comes to things like how to run a freshman election, it might seem a little disorganized," he said.
This will be the first election since last spring, when the executive council elections suffered from complications that resulted in the disqualification of all nine candidates. Some of these candidates were disqualified because they continued to campaign after the official voting period had commenced, which is explicitly against the rules. The CSE facilitated a reelection in the wake of the first election, in which many of the same candidates ran.
In light of last spring's tumultuous elections, the SGA decided to reform CSE protocol by re-creating the committee with a new constitution and holding off on selecting committee members until the beginning of this semester, rather than last spring as would have been customary.
At the SGA meeting on Tuesday, Chandrasekhar proposed a number of reforms. Most notably, he put forward a reform that would dissolve the distinction between the campaigning period and the voting period in student elections, thereby allowing candidates to continue to campaign until voting is complete.
The majority of SGA members, however, voted to keep the current rules intact.
"I believe that the system I proposed would pose a solution to the problems we faced last spring, but unfortunately, the majority of the student government felt that these changes wouldn't be effective," Chandrasekhar said. "It's not in my hands to make the final decision; It's only in my hands to propose these things."
Nick Gilson, sophomore class president, was among those who voted to uphold the distinction between the campaign and voting periods. Gilson said that if campaigning were made legal throughout the voting period, it would be likely that some candidates would manipulate the situation.
"If candidates could campaign while students are voting, what's to stop someone from walking right into your dorm room and convincing you to vote for them, saying, 'It'll just take 15 seconds,' without you even knowing their background or qualifications?" Gilson said.
The situation that Gilson explained is called "dormstorming," and it has been a concern for many members of the SGA.
"The issue is that there is a lot of political apathy on this campus, and [this proposal] would allow for candidates to take advantage of uninformed students," Gilson said.
Those who voted in favor of the reform, such as Max Dworin, sophomore, feel that dormstorming would not actually pose a strong threat.
"I think it insults the intelligence of freshmen to assume that they'll let just anyone walk into their dorm room and trick them into voting," Dworin said.
Dworin said that he voted in favor of the reform because when he was running for SGA last fall, he felt restricted when he was suddenly unable to campaign for himself.
"All [of] a sudden I wasn't even allowed to tell anyone I was running for office. It felt so counterproductive, because you do all this work to campaign, and then when it comes time to actually vote, no one remembers who you are anymore," Dworin said.
According to a member of the SGA who wishes to remain anonymous, Chandrasekhar's proposal would make it feasible for candidates to practice democratic campaigning without fear of being disqualified.
"To forbid candidates from campaigning on their own ground is almost entirely unenforceable - the rules as they stand now have been broken by almost every candidate I've known since I've been on council," the source said. "[Chandrasekhar] was trying to make something legal that will inevitably happen anyway."
Under the current rules, once the official campaign period is closed, a candidate could be disqualified for so much as asking for a vote from a friend.
"The entire spirit of democracy is crushed when you can't do something like send out an e-mail to your fraternity, asking them to vote for you," the source said.
According to Gilson, the current protocol is worth upholding and would be easier to regulate than an election that would allow for open campaigning.
Those who voted to keep the current rules intact said that they have faith in the CSE to ensure that candidates are following the rules.
"From my own experience [during the election period], you're going to have 15 other candidates breathing down your neck waiting for you to make a mistake, and they're going to call CSE and complain until you are disqualified," Gilson said.
"I think that will be fairly easy for us to regulate."
Kate Jacob, senior member of the SGA, said that while she understands that not all candidates followed these rules last spring, she doesn't think it will continue to be a problem.
"CSE will be hard on the people who choose to break the rules. They're pretty straightforward about what is to be allowed, while the number of problems we would have [if we allowed for open campaigning] would be astounding," Jacob said.
Dworin said that while he understands that the SGA's late start has limited the number of reforms the body can make at this time, he does plan on pursuing the reform in the spring.
"I think that once we get through all this bureaucratic work, we're going to be a strong body, but I understand that right now it would be unfair to the freshmen if we were to take the time to overhaul this completely," Dworin said.
Chandrasekhar, too, said that this reform will definitely be worth pursuing in the future.
