Elections Commitee should hold revote
Letter to the Editor
Saint Mary's Board of Governance Election Committee has brought a great injustice against its students' democratic way of life. They have taken what was a great election race and ruined it on account of a petty technicality. A real authority figure with some knowledge of how the political process works needs to step in and overturn the Election Committee's decision. This panel is made up of students, most of whom have close connections with one ticket or the other, making any decision a biased one.
The situation with off-campus students not being given an equal chance to revote on Friday is being completely mishandled. The first set of votes, unless one party receives more than 50 percent, is merely to narrow the students' selections to the most qualified candidates. Nowhere in the bylaws — and I have read them — does it state that these numbers can be added to the runoff election's numbers. Even if they could, this makes no sense at all.
You can't possibly compare an election that has four tickets to one with only two. When the election came down to it, Koelsch/Rodarte prevailed in head-to-head competition. How can you argue that? The votes show that of the two tickets, Koelsch/Rodarte is favored over Renner/Nagle.
If Renner feels that some people didn't get to vote, then those people should get a chance to add to Friday's vote. The committee should probably even hold a revote for the entire school — as annoying as that would be — but has no right to pull ludicrous solutions out of thin air.
Elections are held so that the best representative of the people can be selected. I think the majority of the students feel that this is exactly what happened, but I guess the Election Committee has a different opinion about the purpose of elections. Maybe the election never should have been held in the first place, but the fact is that it was, and it shows who the students want as their president and vice president.
Brian Rush
Sophomore
Stanford Hall
February 8, 2000
All Viewpoint Stories for Wednesday, February 9, 2000
