Election commission changes the voting process

The Student Government Association election season will soon be in full bloom, and voters should take note of the changes this year.

The modifications include the addition of a new trial board and removal of online voting.

These are both results of the strides SGA has taken to prevent scandals in the upcoming election with its new election code, which was presented last semester by SGA President Cedric Bandoh.

“In the past two years, the Judicial Branch of the Student Government Association has seen two cases of violations of the election code and we have all come to realize that there were many flaws with the election, code and a very unorganized court process,” said Sepi Tabrizi, election code Task Force member and current chief justice of the SGA judicial branch.

“President Cedric Bandoh made it one of his presidential goals to revise the election code, and so we did.”

This year, election complaints will go to the Election Trial Board, which is a new lower court of the Judicial Branch. In the past, election complaints were filed with the Election Commission, which turned into a process involving too much bias, Tabrizi said.

The Election Rules and Regulations says that the purpose of the Election Trial Board will be to “preserve, protect, and enforce the Student Government Association Constitution, Bylaws, Election Rules and Regulations, Student Code of Conduct and all other University policies.”

Another adjustment is the removal of online voting.

Last year the SGA faced difficulties with fraud when two senator-elects and the president-elect were found guilty of using other student’s PeopleSoft numbers to cast votes online.

In order to prevent this, students will now have to vote from one of the designated polling locations. SGA is not expecting this to have severe negative effect on voter turnout, said SGA Vice President Turner Harris.

“To my surprise, the data we have suggests that the vast majority of votes actually happened on campus from the various polling locations,” Harris said.

Harris said SGA is also hoping to increase the number of voters for this election.

“We allocated the election commission a much higher marketing budget this year in hopes to boost voter turnout,” Harris said. “My goal is to match the stadium referendum voter turnout, which would be roughly double the students who generally vote in SGA elections.”

According to the election rules and regulations, at least seven polling stations will be scattered around campus, spanning from Lynn Eusan Park to the UH Arts Quad for election dates, which are due to fall on Feb. 26 and 27.

It is not too late for students who are interested in running. Candidate filing will be up from Monday until Feb. 8.

“We encourage any students to apply who want to use their talents to leave the campus a better place than when they arrived,” Harris said.

“I personally am hoping to see more students from the generally under-represented academic centers like the Wolff Center and College of Technology.”

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