Will Sowers, Student Council vice president for administration, proposed a bill to Council at last night's meeting which will change the way student self-governance is conducted at the University if passed at next week's meeting.
Sowers, who has headed the elections reform movement since it began last March, proposed a referendum to be placed on the fall elections ballot to solicit student approval for an entirely new elections system.
Discrepancies in the Spring 2003 elections prompted Council to initiate elections reform. Unclear interpretations of Council's rules and bylaws sparked challenges regarding election fines and run-off procedures.
Council intends to completely remodel the system with the new University Board of Elections, but a temporary Council elections committee will administer the fall elections.
Madelyn Wessel, special advisor to the vice president for student affairs, serves as Council's legal advisor and said she doesn't expect any problems with the fall elections as administered by Council under the old system.
According to the proposed bill, the referendum needs a 2/3 majority on the fall ballot to pass.
In most fall elections, only College students vote on a handful of representative openings. This concerns Council members because of minimum voter turnout requirements necessary to change the constitution. Thus, Council is preparing a voter turnout campaign to entice students from all schools to vote on the referendum.
Sowers emphasized the importance of all students voicing their opinion.
"This is one of the biggest changes to student self-governance in the last 50 years," Sowers said. "It's going to affect all the students come this spring when we hope the UBE will be running the election."
If the referendum fails, Sowers said one of two things could happen depending on the extent of student disapproval: Council could reabsorb the elections process if students disapproved the referendum by a large margin or the Board of Visitors can establish the UBE itself.
According to the initial proposal last spring, the president of every school and the student member of the Board would appoint a member to the UBE. Sowers said the summer working group on election reform expressed concern regarding the feasibility and diversity of this plan.
Under the new plan, University administrators will solicit student applications from all University schools, including the graduate and law programs, Sowers said. The University vice president for student affairs then will screen the applications for certain minimum requirements. Each school's council president then will review the candidates from his or her school, rank their preferences and send the applications to the final deciding board of five which will include the Council president, the Honor chair, the University Judiciary Committee chair, Fourth-year class president and eventually the outgoing UBE chair.
Graduate student Gavin Reddick, who served on the Elections Reform Ad Hoc committee, said this lengthy process ensures an unbiased UBE which will help prevent allegations of Council favoritism.
Council President Daisy Lundy said she is pleased with the outcome of the reform process.
"The implementation of the UBE will alleviate concerns about any lack of integrity during the elections process," she said.
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