Swindle or Solution?

The most passionate debate in student government this semester took place September 10, just before the Undergraduate Student Government (USG) Senate decided by a razor thin, one vote margin to continue a controversial elections practice.

Next week are the fall USG elections: from noon on Monday, October 23 to Friday, October 27 the SOLAR system will allow all undergraduates—except those majoring in engineering or health science fields—to elect four USG Senators, and freshman to vote for their Class Representative.

Thanks to the Senate’s decision, there will be polling stations with nonpartisan election day promoters in high traffic areas during elections.  These polling stations and election day workers are the result of a bill passed by last year’s Senate, the “Voting Stations Solutions Act”, co written by current USG Executive Vice President Amy Wisnoski.  This year, Senator Nathan Shapiro proposed a narrowly defeated bill, the “Voting Advertisement Act” which would have undone Wisnoski’s bill and redirected the money for polling stations and nonpartisan, face-to-face election promoters to the distribution of more flyers, trusting the candidates themselves to approach students.

The Independent invited Shapiro and Wisnoski to present the arguments for their rival legislation.

Students Swindled at USG Polls
By Senator Nathan Shapiro

The Undergraduate student body is about to have their money flushed away in an already-failed election scheme. The USG polling stations, which were first experimented with at the end of the spring semester, had effectively been renewed when the Senate voted down the Elections Advertisement Act, which would have brought an end to the wasteful polling stations and instead spent money on far more effective means to get people to vote.

It’s been claimed by some that the polling stations, which are staffed by paid employees of USG, encourage people to vote. On the contrary, there is no evidence that the polling stations increased the voter turnout last semester because no statistics were kept. Despite the increased voter turnout, it was in-line with the usual bump in students voting when the Student Activity Fee’s mandatory referenda is on the ballot. If any outside forces increased voter turnout last semester, it was the unprecedented level of campaigning by the new USG political parties.

Even many of the advocates of the polling stations admit that they did not do the job tasked to them in getting people to vote, but say that the USG should spend around $1,000 per election on retrying this failed experiment. They cling to the polling stations in the face of the Elections Board Chair, Max Sequoia, telling them that he did not feel he could adequately set-up the polling stations within the time given before the election. If they genuinely wanted effective polling stations, they should have cancelled their use during the fall election and saved USG’s resources and spent time to reform the polling stations for the spring semester.

The most effective means to get people to vote is face-to-face contact with the candidates themselves, yet the polling stations hamper the candidates’ ability to do this. Because the polling stations are set up in the Union and the SAC during campus lifetime, electioneering laws prohibit candidates from campaigning at the time and places that they would be able to reach the largest number of voters.

Polling stations are also the least effective means of voting. The polls on SOLAR list each candidate’s platform statement, which voters should be encouraged to read so that they can cast informed votes. Most people, when others may be waiting on line behind them to vote looking over their shoulders, would be less likely to spend the time seeking out information before voting. The polling stations, in effect, undermine the quality of our democracy.

The university has several SINC sites which can serve as polling places. The Elections Advertisement Act would have instructed the Elections Board and the Vice President of Communications to spend money on fliers and posters for all SINC sites, and all other places the Elections Board deemed useful, instructing students on how to vote online. This, combined with more open campaigning during campus lifetime, is a far more effective means of getting people to vote at a fraction of the cost, with such savings being passed onto student clubs.

In spite of objections from Elections Board, past failures of the polling stations and effective alternatives, Executive Vice President Amy Wisnowski, the author of the act which originally created then, rushed to save them by stepping down as the Chair and wading into the Senate debate. As a result, the Senate narrowly kept the polling stations in place at the expense of the students who now have to pay for more government waste.

Readers should check back as the editorial by Wisnoski is expected soon.