Humans are involved in elections

In reference to Thursday’s front-page article, “SFC chair decided,” (Vanguard, May 6) there was not an Elections Committee meeting on Tuesday, at least, not to my knowledge. Unless Amara Marino and Joe Johnston have appointed a new Elections Committee that has “decided … that current Student Fee Committee (SFC) Chair Tracy Earll will serve again next year, instead of SFC Chair-elect Erin Watari.”

The E&CR has made a ruling, but there has been no Elections Committee meeting to decide on what to do with that decision. In fact, that meeting will probably have to happen after Marino appoints a new Elections Committee.

Additionally, Kelvin was correct in saying there were three options presented to the Elections Committee to handle the elections violations. However, after choosing an option, it was sent to the ASPSU senate for further discussion (a body that the E&CR later decided had nothing to do with Elections Committee decisions). The option that was chosen was chosen solely to send to the senate, not to decide the fate of the SFC chair. So, in effect, there has been no action taken and there probably will not be action taken until a new committee is appointed.

Finally, I would like to remind the student body that the Elections Committee bylaws explicitly state that “Ballots shall be online, in a fashion designated by the Elections Committee” (III.7.2). So the E&CR’s suggestion that we overstepped discretion by including the write-ins on the ballot was a surprise to the Elections Committee.

It is truly unfortunate that certain members of the student body have been so wrapped up in the legality and so-called constitutionality of the elections this year that they have forgotten the humans who are involved beyond all the rhetoric and dictionary definitions that have been passed around. Unfortunately, this narrow-sightedness will lead to an SFC chair who lost by nearly 5 percent of the votes cast by the student body.

Kail M. Robert, junior, Elections Committee Member