The student body will not vote in a special referendum this semester to raise the student fee, said Morgan Corr, chairman of the Joint Elections Committee.
The JEC voted to move the special election to Sept. 26. If passed, the Student Association fee would increase from $1 per credit hour to a flat fee of $20 for graduate students and $30 for undergraduate students per semester.
“Upon reviewing the constitution, I don’t see any way to legally have an election this spring,” Corr, a senior, said.
The original May 2 date is the last day of undergraduate classes, but is also during the finals period for Law School students. Corr said that the SA constitution requires elections to be held on days when all colleges are in session.
Saturday, SA Sen. Joseph Henchman (Law) filed a compliant with the student court that said holding the election on a day Law School students are taking finals would disenfranchise voters. Henchman argued that this practice is illegal under the SA Constitution.
“The election generally has been rushed, and its boosters are pushing it that way so as to minimize opposition,” Henchman wrote in his compliant.
SA President Lamar Thorpe, who has pushed for the referendum since January, supports moving the election to the fall. He said his decision to move the election has nothing to do with Henchman’s compliant and a vote this semester would not be illegal.
He said that his main fear was that if the referendum did not happen this spring, the legislation that allows the election would be invalid. After reviewing the Constitution, he said that this is not the case because the “Senate is a continuous body.”
Thorpe, a senior, also said he did not think holding the election on May 2 would disenfranchise students.
“To make the argument is frankly absurd,” said Thorpe, noting that voting would be conducted solely on computer and not at polling stations.
The JEC met Sunday to reconsider the date for the election. The committee includes sophomore Andrew Cooper, and juniors Elliot Bell-Krasner, Riki Parikh and Alex Scott, in addition to Corr.
