By Chris Megerian
Published September 30th 2005 in Emory Wheel
While the Student Government Association has spent much of its time
working to create a rivalry with Washington University in St. Louis, it
is also pushing ahead with the long-standing issue of election reform.
Legislators will have multiple bills regarding election reform waiting for them when the legislature — which SGA President Amrit Dhir dissolved when he declared himself supreme ruler of SGA on Sept. 19 — is reconvened.
Student leaders have been working on several major changes to the way student government elections will be run, including the holding of separate elections for graduate students and reviving an SGA election code reform proposal that failed to pass last spring.
Separate grad elections
The Graduate Senate passed a bill on Sept. 13 that would allow it to hold its own elections separately from undergraduate elections in the spring.
Last spring, Dhir and Graduate Senate President Joseph Tipograph discussed the possibility of holding separate elections to better serve graduate students. Now, after working all summer on a new elections code, graduate student leaders are ready to present their plan to SGA, which would put graduate elections under the jurisdiction of an elections board separate from SGA’s.
“Grad students should be accountable for their own elections,” Tipograph said.
These changes come on the heels of graduate elections that were marred by miscommunication and lengthy appeals.
“Myself and others felt this would be an appropriate way to address the unfortunate circumstances and put the experience in a positive light,” Tipograph said.
Last spring, presidential candidate Melissa Cheung (’04C), who is now a second-year public health student and also a former managing editor of the Wheel, appealed last year’s election to the Constitutional Council. In the proposal, she accused the Elections Board of five charges, including failure to comply with its own rules for properly notifying candidates of upcoming elections. The council overturned the election, but Tipograph once again beat out Cheung for the position of Grad Senate president.
One of the major components of the new code would be the addition of a publicity campaign to ensure that all students are informed of the elections.
While the elections board will be in charge of publicity, Michael Fabius, a first-year law student and a member of the Student Bar Association, suggested such promotional techniques as e-mails, posters and information sessions for candidates.
Another difference between SGA and graduate elections would be the use of “rank choice,” or “instant runoff,” voting. Instead of voting for a single candidate, students would rank their favorite candidates. A computer system would then eliminate the least popular candidate until one candidate has enough votes to accumulate a majority.
Fabius, who worked for the American Civil Liberties Union’s voting rights project last summer, said he wants all the different graduate schools to eventually hold elections at the same time with the same system in order to minimize confusion and miscommunication. But he said he is unsure when that will be accomplished.
“If it doesn’t happen by February, I won’t be disappointed,” he said. “If it doesn’t happen by next year, I will be disappointed.”
SGA election code reform
Student leaders are planning a renewed push for election code reform this fall. SGA leaders tried to push through election code reform last November but failed to pass the majority of the reforms before the last election.
At the time, former SGA President Jimin Kim (’05C) said the bill failed to pass mainly because of a lack of communication among the bill authors and legislators. Other leaders said they were disappointed, largely because the legislature became bogged down in a debate that SGA Attorney General J.B. Tarter called “uninformed and reactionary” over an essential piece of legislation.
The only reform passed was a clause allowing the use of Web sites by candidates.
Now, student leaders say the legislature will be ready to tackle the important issue of election reform.
“That’s a difference in the nature of this SGA,” Dhir said. “We’ve had more meaningful debates.”
The bill will be brought to a vote at the next SGA meeting but needs to be passed twice in order for the reforms to be made.
One of the major changes that will be proposed at the next meeting will be the lengthening of the campaign period.
Instead of having one week between announcing their candidacy and the election, candidates would be given two weeks to campaign.
However, for the first week of the campaign, the use of posters or e-mail messages would be prohibited, and all campaigning would be done in person by the candidate.
Tarter said that would allow candidates to reach out to different organizations on campus, but to avoid flooding the general student populace with overbearing campaign material.
Another significant change is the removal of a restriction on paraphernalia. If the reforms are passed, candidates would be able to distribute pens, buttons or stickers, as long as each item cost less than $1 to produce.
“We want to encourage creative and imaginative ways of campaigning,” Tarter said.
Under the proposed changes, elections would be moved to the third Thursday of February, instead of the third or fourth Tuesday of February. Runoffs would be held on the following Tuesday — a gap of five days instead of the current two-day break. Tarter said lengthening the runoff period would allow eliminated candidates to support those still in the running and for students to seek out more endorsements.
One of the more controversial proposed changes is a clause allowing candidates to make factual, relative statements about their opponents. But the clause also bans negative campaigning. In the current election code, there is no clause regarding making statements about opponents.
“We recognize that there are major differences between candidates [that can and should be brought up],” Tarter said.
Several other changes are included in the bill, such as increased spending limits and the elimination of a SGA-organized debate among candidates. Instead of the SGA debate, Tarter said, the elections board would work with an outside group interested in holding a nonpartisan yet informative debate.
Freshman elections
Some students have questioned whether or not freshman elections are held too early in the semester, before freshmen are able to assimilate to Emory’s campus.
College freshman Maria Town, who won an SGA freshman representative position in last week’s election, said elections should be moved back to fall break and that candidates should be required to attend a legislative meeting.
“When you ask [freshmen] about actual issues, they’re all going to say the same thing,” she said. “The only issues we’ve truly had any experience with are food and transportation.”
But College Council President Feras Akbik said freshman elections need to be held early in order to give freshmen time to work on legislation. Akbik said that if elections were held after fall break, SGA representatives would only be able to attend about four meetings before the end of the term.
“We have to represent the freshman class to be fair on student issues,” he said. “In order to give freshmen a chance, we have to get them in relatively soon.”
Legislators will have multiple bills regarding election reform waiting for them when the legislature — which SGA President Amrit Dhir dissolved when he declared himself supreme ruler of SGA on Sept. 19 — is reconvened.
Student leaders have been working on several major changes to the way student government elections will be run, including the holding of separate elections for graduate students and reviving an SGA election code reform proposal that failed to pass last spring.
Separate grad elections
The Graduate Senate passed a bill on Sept. 13 that would allow it to hold its own elections separately from undergraduate elections in the spring.
Last spring, Dhir and Graduate Senate President Joseph Tipograph discussed the possibility of holding separate elections to better serve graduate students. Now, after working all summer on a new elections code, graduate student leaders are ready to present their plan to SGA, which would put graduate elections under the jurisdiction of an elections board separate from SGA’s.
“Grad students should be accountable for their own elections,” Tipograph said.
These changes come on the heels of graduate elections that were marred by miscommunication and lengthy appeals.
“Myself and others felt this would be an appropriate way to address the unfortunate circumstances and put the experience in a positive light,” Tipograph said.
Last spring, presidential candidate Melissa Cheung (’04C), who is now a second-year public health student and also a former managing editor of the Wheel, appealed last year’s election to the Constitutional Council. In the proposal, she accused the Elections Board of five charges, including failure to comply with its own rules for properly notifying candidates of upcoming elections. The council overturned the election, but Tipograph once again beat out Cheung for the position of Grad Senate president.
One of the major components of the new code would be the addition of a publicity campaign to ensure that all students are informed of the elections.
While the elections board will be in charge of publicity, Michael Fabius, a first-year law student and a member of the Student Bar Association, suggested such promotional techniques as e-mails, posters and information sessions for candidates.
Another difference between SGA and graduate elections would be the use of “rank choice,” or “instant runoff,” voting. Instead of voting for a single candidate, students would rank their favorite candidates. A computer system would then eliminate the least popular candidate until one candidate has enough votes to accumulate a majority.
Fabius, who worked for the American Civil Liberties Union’s voting rights project last summer, said he wants all the different graduate schools to eventually hold elections at the same time with the same system in order to minimize confusion and miscommunication. But he said he is unsure when that will be accomplished.
“If it doesn’t happen by February, I won’t be disappointed,” he said. “If it doesn’t happen by next year, I will be disappointed.”
SGA election code reform
Student leaders are planning a renewed push for election code reform this fall. SGA leaders tried to push through election code reform last November but failed to pass the majority of the reforms before the last election.
At the time, former SGA President Jimin Kim (’05C) said the bill failed to pass mainly because of a lack of communication among the bill authors and legislators. Other leaders said they were disappointed, largely because the legislature became bogged down in a debate that SGA Attorney General J.B. Tarter called “uninformed and reactionary” over an essential piece of legislation.
The only reform passed was a clause allowing the use of Web sites by candidates.
Now, student leaders say the legislature will be ready to tackle the important issue of election reform.
“That’s a difference in the nature of this SGA,” Dhir said. “We’ve had more meaningful debates.”
The bill will be brought to a vote at the next SGA meeting but needs to be passed twice in order for the reforms to be made.
One of the major changes that will be proposed at the next meeting will be the lengthening of the campaign period.
Instead of having one week between announcing their candidacy and the election, candidates would be given two weeks to campaign.
However, for the first week of the campaign, the use of posters or e-mail messages would be prohibited, and all campaigning would be done in person by the candidate.
Tarter said that would allow candidates to reach out to different organizations on campus, but to avoid flooding the general student populace with overbearing campaign material.
Another significant change is the removal of a restriction on paraphernalia. If the reforms are passed, candidates would be able to distribute pens, buttons or stickers, as long as each item cost less than $1 to produce.
“We want to encourage creative and imaginative ways of campaigning,” Tarter said.
Under the proposed changes, elections would be moved to the third Thursday of February, instead of the third or fourth Tuesday of February. Runoffs would be held on the following Tuesday — a gap of five days instead of the current two-day break. Tarter said lengthening the runoff period would allow eliminated candidates to support those still in the running and for students to seek out more endorsements.
One of the more controversial proposed changes is a clause allowing candidates to make factual, relative statements about their opponents. But the clause also bans negative campaigning. In the current election code, there is no clause regarding making statements about opponents.
“We recognize that there are major differences between candidates [that can and should be brought up],” Tarter said.
Several other changes are included in the bill, such as increased spending limits and the elimination of a SGA-organized debate among candidates. Instead of the SGA debate, Tarter said, the elections board would work with an outside group interested in holding a nonpartisan yet informative debate.
Freshman elections
Some students have questioned whether or not freshman elections are held too early in the semester, before freshmen are able to assimilate to Emory’s campus.
College freshman Maria Town, who won an SGA freshman representative position in last week’s election, said elections should be moved back to fall break and that candidates should be required to attend a legislative meeting.
“When you ask [freshmen] about actual issues, they’re all going to say the same thing,” she said. “The only issues we’ve truly had any experience with are food and transportation.”
But College Council President Feras Akbik said freshman elections need to be held early in order to give freshmen time to work on legislation. Akbik said that if elections were held after fall break, SGA representatives would only be able to attend about four meetings before the end of the term.
“We have to represent the freshman class to be fair on student issues,” he said. “In order to give freshmen a chance, we have to get them in relatively soon.”
