|
The cycle of elections for the various clubs and organizations is now over for the most part. Having been both a passive voter and a candidate, there is something I would like to see changed about the election procedure used for the SBA and Honor Court. I applaud the honor, honesty, and seriousness with which both the Honor Court and the SBA ran this year's elections. It would be implausible to suspect fraud, cheating, or foul play. There are two reforms, however, I would like to see instituted: 1) Candidates who wish to know the raw number results of the elections should be able to discover them, and 2) 3Ls should not be allowed to vote in an election whose consequences will be felt when they are no longer students at this school. My purpose in wanting to know the raw vote totals is just for the sake of my own knowledge as a candidate. I know that I lost fairly and according to the rules. According to rules of elections that have always been used, I was not allowed to know either the voter turnout among the classes or the raw vote totals. Dean Marzolf backed up the tradition bound secrecy and suggested that a rule change would have be instituted in order for the secrecy to be lifted. Such a rule change is what I now propose for the new SBA executive board. Having the vote totals and the turnout numbers would provide candidates with a couple of pieces of information. First, if it were a blowout or a significant margin of victory, then the candidate would have to shrug and accept the result. In high school, keeping the raw vote totals a secret was a good way of protecting the often-fragile egos of teenagers. We are not in high school, however, the vaunted rumor mill notwithstanding. Most of us are over the age of 21 and therefore eligible to run for the General Assembly if we have become Virginia residents. If I run for the General Assembly, not only will I know the results of the election, but so will everyone else in town. With a mind toward the small, close-knit nature of our law school, I am not proposing that the raw voting numbers be posted on the general notice board or published here in the Juris Publici. Some candidates may not want to know the results, and in a school this small, I would respect that. I see no reason, though, why a candidate who is willing to face potentially humiliating results should not be told the results, both class turnout and raw vote total. The second piece of information would be that if the vote was close, and there was a high turnout of 3Ls compared to the other classes, it could be valid to say that the 3L vote decided the election. While that would be circumstantial, there would be no question had only 1Ls and 2Ls voted. In a close race with high 3L turnout, such a question would arise in my mind. If that was the case, a candidate should not call into question the fairness or integrity of the election since those are the current rules. That brings me to my final reform. It appears irregular that the election rules allowed 3Ls to vote when the decisions made regarding next year's student government will have no effect on them whatsoever. As the author of my high school's student body constitution, we specifically disenfranchised seniors from voting for the following year's student council because they would not be members of the student body under whom those elected officers would serve. Yes, in the real world, all you have to do is be living in your particular district on Election Day to vote there. Again, we need to respect the unique nature of a student government as opposed to a public government. Just as we would not allow someone from New York to have a vote in a Virginia election just because he lived there last year, we should not allow 3Ls to have a say in who runs the SBA and the Honor Court. That is not to suggest that 3Ls do not have an interest in who would run the student government after they leave, but they do not have to live with their choices. As our new executive board beings planning for the next year and considers reforms to make the SBA more efficient, I hope they will consider these proposals of mine. I hope they, and you, will find them both fair-minded and common sense in their approach. Now, let the debate begin! |
Previous Page 
Next
Page