Sunday, January 17, 2010
Election season kicks off...with two fails?
The annual ASUN election cycle is a story of one debacle after another. In the past several years, elections have been mired in procedural and substantive errors, including questionable ballot counting practices, wholesale negligence with respect to following election rules, and officers who fail to perform their duties, but I have a feeling that this year will take the cake.
Already we have reported about two failed attempts of the Election Commission to meet this year, under the inspired leadership of a failed vice presidential candidate and former senator who was censured for Open Meeting Law violations, Jeremiah Todd. [UPDATE: A scheduled third meeting apparently happened, but a fourth meeting won't since the agenda never made it online. So the Commission has successfully held only 25 percent if its scheduled meetings this year.] Already we have reported on ASUN President Eli Reilly's failure to follow the law on Senate apportionment. Tonight we have proof.
This facebook page has surfaced stating the number of seats each college is entitled in the next Senate session. [UPDATE 1/20/2010: A more official source, the ASUN web site, contains the same info.] Notice anything wrong? CABNR gets screwed out of its new seat. According to the fall 2009 undergraduate headcount figures, CABNR is entitled to a second seat at the expense of one of the Division of Health Sciences seat (see our analysis here).
Unfortunately, since President Reilly never bothered to run the numbers and transmit them to the Senate, we're operating under an erroneous apportionment scheme. It's pretty sad considering we did all the hard work (30 minutes worth, tops) and even gave an example of what an appropriate statement looks like in our post here. Practically all that was required was to fill in the blanks.
Perhaps the Judicial Council will exercise its constitutional power under Article IV, section 2(d) to take over the apportionment process. [UPDATE 1/19/2010: We have received credible information that the Judicial Council is in fact examining whether to exercise its constitutional power and duty in this matter.]
Candidate packet misreports the law
The election packet misreports the Election Code. It does not include the amendments that were made to the code in the 76th Session that were scheduled to take effect in this election. Don't forget that the legal status of those amendments, among most everything else that came out of the 76th Session, was seriously in question, but was never resolved. (Hint hint to some enterprising candidate. Filed documents available here. Second hint: the issues in the cases are still viable.)
If anything, since record keeping is so abysmally poor from the 76th Session forward, good luck trying to determine what is law and what is not. Heck, even the government won't publish an accurate, up-to-date compilation of the Election Code (that link is now two elections old and no active links point to it--it took a Google search to unearth it).
And don't even get me started on the constitutional amendment that the voters ratified but still hasn't been included in the document.
Any bets on whether the Sagebrush has picked up on any of this. Or maybe they've made it policy to ignore ASUN entirely.
So if the goal is to out-do (in a bad way) past elections, this election is off to a commendable start.
Peace and love.
Posts
where is the facebook page you mention? there is no link. Two bad about CABNR...but who cares about them anyway and the seat they are supposed to have. Give it to the business kids.
ReplyDeleteFixed the link. The CABNR students should care. "Give it to the business kids," spoken like a true COBA student. And it isn't so much that one seat isn't where it belongs, it's that two branches of ASUN are grossly derelect in the clear constitutional duty to reapportion the Senate's seats every two years.
ReplyDeleteI also updated the post to link to a more official source, although there is no reason to doubt that the facebook page is in fact not maintained by an ASUN election official.
ReplyDeleteWow...
ReplyDeleteSenate has no authority in apportionment of seats. Look it up, it is all within the public laws.
ReplyDeleteHow do you explain article II, section 1(b) which in part reads "The apportionment and number shall be set by law every two years." Doesn't this mean the Senate has some role to play? The fact is the Senate has absolute authority in this area.
ReplyDeleteRead the law again. i wish i had the time to find the specific one for you, but the president has SOLE authority in this matter. He is to give the new numbers to the senate by december 1st, every two years. His fault, not the senates
ReplyDeleteI have read the law, and I agree that this is the president's fault directly, but are you saying the Senate bears no blame in this? Should they seriously wash their hands of this situation? Why don't they have a responsibility to make sure stuff gets done? Couldn't they change the law to ensure the constitutional duty assigned to the Senate to reappotion every two years is satisfied in some way?
ReplyDelete