This year’s student elections have taken a page from a soap opera script: Just when it seems Alexis Rice has finally won, a shocking ballot controversy takes away her victory. And just when it looked like Derek Grosso was gone for good, he surprises everyone by coming back from the dead for one more attempt at attaining his goal. All we need now is for one of the candidates’ evil twins to appear.

Most students wish they could just grab the remote control and switch to another channel. But instead of looking for something else to watch, their solution is to ignore the election debacle altogether. For the SA, which aims to be the voice of students, it is a bad omen.

This election season could be the most ridiculous ever. First came the drama surrounding the Joint Elections Committee’s decision to toss candidates off the ballot. That was followed by election results announced at the crack of dawn. Then those results were found to be inaccurate in some races. Now come runoff elections scheduled for this week. But no one knows if those runoffs will actually take place, or if the drama will continue into yet another week. But given all the mistakes and incompetence of the recent past, does it matter when the elections are? Students don’t care.

This monthlong drama has severely damaged any legitimacy the SA tries to maintain and has fed student apathy. These elections lack credibility. No one will ever view the results as final because each time they were recounted, new “final” results were announced. It has been three weeks since the elections, and still no one is sure whether the people who did win should have won or if all the results should be thrown out.

The SA is supposed to represent all students and speak on their behalf to the University administration. Can it really do that when few students show any interest in the SA? When the SA speaks, will anyone listen? Will anyone care? Usually the SA shoots itself in the foot. This time, with help from the JEC, it shot itself in the head.