This past Tuesday, the Student Association Senate voted to create a special committee on election reform. We did this for one simple reason – there is a dramatic need for change in the way the SA conducts its elections.
For the past several months, I have worked with numerous other student leaders in crafting a new charter for the Joint Elections Committee, the body that oversees student elections on this campus. Within the next month, I hope the Senate will pass substantive changes to our election procedures.
One of the main goals of this reform will be to tone down the elections. Any student that has been at GW for at least a year will tell you that student elections get out of control at this University. Students often feel harassed when walking across campus on election day because supporters of various candidates thrust palmcards at them from every direction.
The new proposed election charter would severely limit palmcarding, allowing distribution only in strategically placed locations as to not inconvenience students. The new charter would also limit postering, allowing each candidate somewhere between 50 and 100 posters, thus stopping candidates from trashing the entire campus with posters.
There are numerous other small improvements in the charter, many of them placed there to avoid the debacle of last year’s revised election results, where one student was declared president, then told several days later that there had been a miscount. In addition, a group of official observers, one from each campaign, will be assembled to monitor the election and ensure that nothing goes wrong.
While no election can be perfect, we are working to try to improve the election process. Elections are often a pain, but they are a necessary evil to allow you to select your student leaders for the coming year. Our goal is to strike the appropriate balance between healthy campaigning and destructive over-campaigning. I hope that you will join us in working toward that goal.
-The writer is a Student Association graduate at-large senator and chairman of the Special Committee on Election Reform.
