Flashback to 2006

Taking no opinion on the votes expressed here, notice anything amiss?

Bragging rights go to the first person to answer what is wrong and cite to some authority.

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.

Two for two

The Commission on Association Elections, under the dazzling leadership of censured former Sen. Jeremiah Todd, is two for two this year--that's two for two in canceled meetings. Sure have been a lot of canceled meetings in ASUN this term. At least he hasn't violated the Open Meeting Law, the basis for his censure as a senator.