The Inter-Fraternity Council Executive Committee and the President's Council unanimously passed election reforms last Thursday aimed at improving voting procedures and publicity for their organization.
"The overall change is a more specific plan for how we promote and carry out the election," IFC President Phil Trout said.
Recently, a concern arose over the legitimacy of the election process for the Executive Committee, the governing body of the IFC. Fraternities elect a new president in January, who then serves on the President's Council for the February elections of the IFC Executive Committee.
Many members felt this was too short an amount of time for the new president to make a well-informed vote.
"This created a significant problem because many presidents take office in January, and they have not worked with the IFC Presidents' Council or Executive Committee as extensively as their past president," IFC Spokesman Ryan Ewalt said.
The committee decided to ease the transition of the former president to his successor by combining their votes for the election of committee members.
The reform will give new presidents the opportunity to discuss each vote with their former presidents, who had worked with the IFC for a year, Ewalt said.
In a change from previous years, presidents will vote on applicants that must answer a set of questions tailored for each specific office. Candidate information packets will be available to each fraternity president prior to elections.
"Previously, candidates would give a three minute speech -- if they were a good public speaker, they had better chances," Trout said. "These changes add more content to the election and makes the candidates take their positions and running more seriously."
The candidates also will face stricter election procedures in February. Personalized voting forms will be used to restrict fraternities from voting more than once for a candidate. The forms will be numerically assigned, so as to keep voter confidentiality.
A second option, which included a "screening committee" proposal, did not pass at the meeting. The plan would have granted the committee jurisdiction to restrict the number of candidates in each office.
Trout said he believes the option was rejected because "people were concerned that there would be too much bias and whoever is on the committee could influence the election."
In addition to changing election procedures, the proposal calls for improved publication of committee job descriptions and election procedures.
"This new system also requires the IFC to greatly increase the publicity of its election in February," Ewalt said. "This increase in publicity will be needed to make the new question and answer form work effectively."
The publicity measures are intended to inform fraternities of the candidates' role and qualifications.
"The better informed the voter, the better informed the vote," said Aaron Laushway, assistant dean of students and director of fraternity and sorority life. "It seems to me these are good steps in the election of new officials."
The Executive Committee will hold elections Feb. 13 and 20.
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