Setting the Ground Rules

As most of us embark on our travels home to enjoy a restful Thanksgiving, the six candidates for the Undergraduate Council presidency will spend this weekend fine-tuning their plans to roll out their messages when the official campaigning period begins on Monday.

But even before the beginning of actual campaigning, there has already been a healthy amount of controversy about this year’s election, most of it centered around the Undergraduate Council’s Election Commission. The commission’s new and overreaching interpretation of the rule against campaigning before the official start date resulted in a full-scale prohibition of any prospective candidates speaking with the press before their petitions for candidacy were certified. Even now, in the days before official campaigning begins, candidates are still prohibited from making “broadly public” statements about their candidacy. This muddled ban has led to confusion and frustration from candidates, many of whom already hold offices in the Undergraduate Council that require frequent communication with the campus press in order to keep the student body well-informed.

By trying to control and block potential candidates’ interaction with the press, the commission’s draconian stance has in effect prevented candidates who do not currently hold council office from freely communicating with the student body. While the effort to confine the actual campaigning to a manageable time frame is a reasonable goal, forcing students to keep their intentions secret before an arbitrary date is ridiculous. In neither federal, state, nor municipal elections are candidates ever barred from announcing their intentions. While it is up to the candidates and their campaigns to make the strategic decisions about when they should first reveal their ambitions, the Election Commission should not put restrictions on their ability to execute those plans, however wise or unwise they may be.

Additionally, the fact that the rules for the election were not finalized until after candidates were already working on their candidacies indicates that some pre-planning could have cleared up much of the confusion. The cap on the number of signatures was not determined until after the signature drives were already underway, and differing interpretations of the media ban were given by the election commissioners and the council president while the ban was in place. These internal inconsistencies only added to the frustration of those “outsider” candidates not accustomed to dealing with the intricacies of council policy.

Many of the problems stem from poorly-written election regulations in the council bylaws, which even the Election Commission Chair David I. Montiero ’04 recognizes to be “competing if not conflicting.” But that does not eliminate the responsibility of the commission to fashion an interpretation that is sensible for all parties. Its first ruling penalized David M. Darst ’04 for inappropriately gathering signatures, but the alleged infraction occurred before the rules were even finalized.

Council elections have improved markedly since the button fiasco of Fentrice D. Driskell ’01, but the new voting website’s difficulties this fall, which disenfranchised several students and delayed voting for days, still gives us reason to watch these proceedings carefully. The Election Commission must ensure that the mechanics of the elections process do not become a disincentive for candidates who can do the best job in bringing much needed new leadership to the Council.