Bradley Wilson
The Student Government Elections Commission held an open forum to address issues surrounding the freeze on student body elections in the Student Senate Chamber Monday afternoon.
Students voiced concerns and asked questions — ultimately leading Tom Stafford, vice chancellor for student affairs, to call a session of the Elections Commission resulting in a compromise between the two sides.
The ongoing battle pitted the Student Senate and administration against one another to determine whether or not part-time students should be eligible to run and vote in the spring elections.
“The student body doesn’t have any authority to do anything,” Stafford said, explaining that the power of decision making is ultimately granted to the chancellor by the Board of Governors and was delegated to him.
The voting, set to begin yesterday, was frozen after Stafford stepped in and halted the process until the two sides could agree on the part-time students’ voting rights and the inclusion of a referendum that would change the language of the Student Body Constitution allowing the part-time students’ participation in elections.
The struggle came to end in the Judicial Board room following the forum, with an informal vote from the Elections Commission signaling they were willing to accept Stafford’s original compromise.
“I’m a little bit disappointed,” Kevin Hassell, chair of the elections commission, said. “We spent all this time fighting, but I am overjoyed that Student Government, the elections and the candidates are all going to be able to move forward.”
The deal has remained consistent on behalf of the administration, and will allow part-time students to vote but not to run for office, and the ballot will feature the referendum which Stafford said he will nullify if passed by the student body.
Student senators held their ground during the lengthy battle, hoping to change the administration’s mind, but ultimately conceded — leaving some members of the committee frustrated.
An official vote will take place tonight in an official meeting of the committee to formally approve the new ballot and move ahead with elections set for Monday and Tuesday, April 3-4.
“This should have been resolved a long time before now,” Stafford said, referencing the initial deal set forth more than a week ago.
He described the compromise as agreeable, and said his biggest concern throughout the fiasco dealt with the candidates and their supporters.
Lock Whiteside, a senior in political science, cited his frustration with Stafford and his decision to halt the elections — pushing the voting day back a week and causing financial hardships for many of the candidates.
“I’m not a rich person. I can’t afford to run another campaign, and that hurts a lot of us,” Whiteside said.
Following the Elections Commission meeting, Stafford pledged to pay each candidate running for student body president, Student Senate president, student chief justice or student body treasurer $50 to finance their additional week of campaigning.
Tony Caravano, a former student body president, attended the forum and urged the student leaders to look for loopholes to substantiate their case, and if it doesn’t work to try to compromise.
Other students responded by questioning why the Senate chose to prolong the struggle for power.
“Why would you call an administrator’s bluff?” Travis Birdsell, a junior in poultry science, asked.
He pointed to the debate as being limited to a minority of the students on campus, reflected by the showing for the forum.
“They don’t care,” he said.
Student Senate President Forrest Hinton said he had taken the process day by day, but had gotten a sense from senators and officials present that they were ready to resolve the issue and move forward.
“I definitely felt the crunch time,” Hinton said. “I felt like what students wanted was compromise.”
He said candidates running in the spring elections were committed to continuing the fight for the rights of part-time students.
“This is certainly a struggle that’s not over,” Hinton said.
Stafford told the commission and those at the forum that he plans to proceed with elections following the compromise and will address the many issues with next year’s Student Government leaders.