As the Student Government Association elections come to a close, a former election commissioner is criticizing the way this year’s election process has been conducted.
The concerns given include the allowance of illegal campaign activities, insufficient advertisement of the election and a lackluster usage of the appropriated election commission budget.
“I wouldn’t go as far as to say the funds are being misused. I would, however, say that they don’t seem to be being used at all,” history senior and former election commissioner Amy Radley said. “Besides this weeks’ Daily Cougar ads and the yard signs, I have seen zero anything.”
Radley also said she has heard from students that they were not aware they could run for SGA because it was not announced.
Radley said advertising the opportunity to run for student office as well as to vote in the senate elections is one of the primary functions of the election commission, Radley said, in addition to such tasks as approving all campaign advertisements and making sure the candidates are following the rules ⎯ a job, she said, they are not doing.
“I would have been much tougher on the candidates,” Radley said. “I have already seen illegal postings and improper use of copyrighted UH symbols.”
Radley said the last-minute appointment by the SGA to the election commission and the last-minute amendments to the constitution perhaps contributed to these matters. She said she had been elected several months in advance to prepare, but the current election commissioners have had much less time to get their bearings.
Chief Election Commissioner Jamie Naugle agrees.
“Myself, along with the other two election commissioners, have been in our positions for a little over a month now,” she said. “Because of the short time we have spent in our positions thus far, we have had to learn as we go.”
Naugle denies any notion that the commission’s funds were used irresponsibly.
“The vast majority of our budget was actually spent on marketing materials,” Naugle said. “Had we been elected to our positions earlier, we could have had the opportunity to advertise the filing period to a greater extent, but due to our time crunch, we were not able to advertise as widely as we would have liked to.”
Radley said the SGA “really dropped the ball” on this issue.
“I was asked in November to be a part of it, and I agreed, but it wasn’t until a few days prior to February that the other two commissioners were going to be voted on, which means (over) the entire vacation, no work could be done on the election,” Radley said. “I withdrew because, to me, the time allowed would not have been enough to do all that should be done and all that the University deserves.”
Regardless, Radley praises the people doing the job that she deems “very difficult and very stressful.”
For Naugle, this statement is all too familiar.
“Although no process, organization or entity is free of mistakes or flaws, we take every experience as a learning experience that can be improved upon in the coming years,” Naugle said.
Well lets all be honest, the election commission hasn’t been doing anything. They recently asked SGA for more money for the election, but again…what are they using it on? They are letting candidates run wild, they have been openly campaigning in the library, but witnesses just dont want to deal with the paper work, and the fact the the election commission doens’t KNOW WHAT THEY ARE DOING!!!!!! One candidate has nearly 7 strikes against them, and the election comms aren’t doing anything about it. Its all very depressing. Maybe next time K. Fommunung has a really important deadline he will stop worrying about all the partying the frat stuff and the title and actually be a good leader. Running for SGA President with ZERO SGA experience isn’t ballsy, its stupid, and the university has suffered.
Keeping up with the SGA election this year through the Daily Cougar and various contacts I still have on campus has been a very huge disappointment. It really irks me how simple things can’t get done by the SGA.
Miss Ridley (sorry DC but you misspelled her name) was being very nice about her assessment of the current EC and the election.
First of all, President Fommunung SHOULD’VE had the EC in place waaaaaaay back in in October…instead he decides to push it off until February…one month before the election. Not a lot of people realize how much goes into the planning, and reviewing of the rules and preparation of the candidates.
I would like to hope/think that he has a full plate as a president; but no, as the above poster has stated… HE’S PRIORITIZING OTHER THINGS BEFORE SGA (i.e. his Fraternity…btw I don’t give a damn that your Fraternity is having a big party coming up…so STOP SENDING THE MASS INVITES TO YOUR EVENTS via FACEBOOK!)
Also, to my understanding, the president was also being VERY wishy-washy on who to put into the commission. Instead of putting people into the commission that were qualified/experienced, he wanted to “diversify” the commission (even at the sake of experience) to make sure it was not all mono-ethnic because of the whole “issue” and “controversy” of alleged “discrimination” that occurred last year (which is a whole different story for another day).
I’m all fine with training new blood and giving them a chance to learn on the job…but at least give them the PROPER AMOUNT OF TIME to LEARN… I’d sure as hell take 5 months over 1 month ANY day…even if I HAD the experience. Because of President Fommunung’s ineffective leadership and indecisiveness, and misplaced priorities, a lot of students at the University of Houston have missed out on this election in so many ways imaginable…