The proposed Honor Democratization Amendment to the Honor Committee constitution failed to win the necessary amount of support from students Thursday, with 53.38 percent of students voting against the proposed amendment.
The proposed amendment would have lowered the threshold of support needed to amend the Committee’s constitution in University-wide referendums from 60 percent to 55 percent. The amendment needed 60 percent of the vote to pass, as well as support from 10 percent of students eligible to vote.
Only 46.62 percent of voters supported the proposed amendment in the referendum.
While the Honor committee declined to take a single stance on the amendment, members published their individual opinions of the referendum. Of the 27-person committee, 18 members had planned to vote “no” and nine planned to vote “yes.” Honor chair Matt West was among the members of the committee who did not support the amendment.
“I think there is a vocal and well-organized group of students who strongly support the amendment and have done a very good job in my opinion of promoting the proposal and encouraging students to vote yes,” West said in an interview with The Cavalier Daily earlier this week. “On the other side of the debate, I’ve spoken to many other students who share the concerns members of the Committee have expressed on the amendment and the fact that this could undermine constitutional protections for voters who happen to find themselves in the minority on a question.”
The amendment, which was proposed independently of the Committee by fourth-year College students Nathan Gonzalez and VJ Jenkins — who is also a Committee member — received the 1,250 signatures needed in order for it to be included on the ballot. Supporters of the proposed amendment attempted to garner support through a campaign titled “Empowered 55.”
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