The leader of the regulatory body traditionally charged with scrutinizing Student Association elections is pledging to move away from doggedly seeking out rule violations to instead boost campus participation in the vote.
Senior Phil Gardner, chair of the Joint Elections Committee, said the group’s top goal is to attract more voters to the February election, which he said typically achieves a 20-percent participation rate among the student body.
“We want rules to be followed, but most of our time this year will be promoting elections, getting more students involved, getting students to listen to candidates,” Gardner said.
Acting as referees instead of cops, the body will continue to enforce election rules set by the JEC charter, which was approved by the SA Senate Dec. 6 with the same violation policies as last year. Last spring, dozens of candidates received election penalties for putting up campaign posters in prohibited locations, sending unsolicited e-mails and using posters without JEC approval, though none were removed from the ballot.
“In the past, the JEC enforced rules to the extreme, even when they didn’t have an effect on the outcome of elections,” Gardner said.
In March 2009, the JEC accused Student Association presidential candidate Kyle Boyer of exceeding the $1,000 campaign spending limit in the general election. The committee charged Boyer with three violations for failing to report the value of a car he borrowed to display posters, play music and dance on, bringing his total violations to eight and disqualifying him from the election.
Gardner said if JEC members notice “egregious violations” this spring or if students report violations, the committee will take action, but otherwise they will “let the kids play.”
Sophomore and Joint Elections Committee vice chair Gordon Pera said the committee should not solely focus on hunting for violations.
“The only specific goals this committee should have are carrying out that mission [of enforcing the JEC charter] and promoting the election in order to get more students involved in the process,” Pera said.
The committee will launch a “Choose Your GW” promotion for the election to help students learn about the candidates through University e-mail and social media.
With a heightened focus on publicity efforts, Tim Miller, director of the Center for Student Engagement, expressed concern that the Joint Elections Committee may overlook its responsibility of enforcing the rules.
Miller, who has overseen six elections at GW, advised the committee to be careful in making judgments about which rules should be upheld.
“The charter was created for a reason, and the JEC exists to enforce the charter,” Miller said. He said it is the job of the organizations hosting the elections to attract student interest in their candidates, not the committee’s.
Gardner is the first JEC chair in recent years to have run for a top campus post, which allows him to have a unique perspective, Miller noted. Last spring, the senior ran and lost on a platform to “abolish” the Student Association.
Senior Dylan Pyne, chair of the Marvin Center Governing Board, said he appointed a student-focused leader like Gardner to the JEC so the committee can “focus more on spreading the word about the elections and assisting in publicizing the candidates’ actual platforms and beliefs.”
Candidate registration kicks off Feb. 8. Students can begin postering the following week, and elections will be held Feb. 22 and 23.
This is just some good ol’ fashioned rearranging of the deck chairs on the Hindenburg. Sure, a bigger turnout would be great but what are SA campaigns really about? They are about who has the most connections to the largest student groups that can strong-arm members into voting for the person they want. After sitting through several campaigns I still have no idea what any of the candidates are really doing. They say they’ll do some major sweeping changes on campus if elected and then the next year piss themselves with joy for achievements that matter to almost no one. The rare successes they do get are likely more to the school realizing, oops we can’t scam the students any more on this, now we need to pretend we are not a ‘for-profit’ not for profit institution.
Does anyone really think the school could have kept up charging for psychiatric help after recent issues on campus? I would think that at that point their iota of ethics might overlook their need to squeeze out the money from their consumer base, the students. And even so, they just delayed the point at which students would have to pay, not abolishing costs at all.
If you want an actual body that matters, you need a regularly held public forum where students can call out the school for these nonsenses. With that you can cut the SA down to a skeleton crew of secretaries to pass on these issues to the powers that be.
Now you want to motivate students to vote for this body, that has no power and no purpose. Why? Would anything be different if Mr. or Ms. runner-up candidates got elected? They would still be chasing the same balls that every past SA body has done and react identically to the obvious mistakes the school makes. This is all a farce, so why not keep it contained to only wasting 20% of people’s time
I hope the JEC really can do what they intend according to this article. In my opinion the JEC should only enforce rules set out in the charter approved by student representatives and not have to enforce university rules as well. It is so easy to get bogged down in petty enforcement initiated often by what frankly can only be described as tattletaling, often by students working for an opposing candidate. I tried to move the JEC this direction in 2005 when I was Vice-Chair, but practically got thrown off the JEC at my colleagues’ request because they thought I went too easy on candidates and didn’t play along with their more enforcement-based mentality.
What a bunch of tools. Students don’t vote because they don’t want a bunch of tools being tools.
Actually, tools get elected because you don’t run or vote. So tools run, and tools vote. So get involved or don’t complain!