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NEWS
| april 23, 2004
Student Governance
Committee members violate code
Josh Warren says some may not
have known they were named to the impartial committee or that they
broke rules.
By Josh
Bohling
The Shorthorn Staff
Several members of an impartial committee responsible for hearing
election disputes ran for office during this week’s elections,
violating the Student Governance Election Code rules.
Three disputes of the election results were filed Tuesday and Wednesday
and, according to the election code, must be heard by the Election
Committee by May 3.
The code states no Election Committee member may be a candidate
for office or campaigning for any candidate.
Carter Bedford, Student Governance associate director, said some
members of the committee had been candidates for elections held
on Monday and Tuesday but would not say how many.
Student Congress President Josh Warren said he did not know who
was on the committee or when they had last met. He said several
members may not have even been aware that they were on the committee.
Bedford is in the process of contacting constituency council presidents
and replacing members.
Under the Student Governance Election Code, the committee is comprised
of 11 students, including nine members appointed from each constituency
council and two members of the Military Science Corps of Cadets.
The committee must hold hearings with plaintiffs, defendants and
any witnesses when election disputes are filed.
At least two committee members contacted said they had been candidates
in the recent elections and would not be able to serve during the
hearings.
James Urban, a Liberal Arts senator who ran for SC vice president,
said he had been part of the Election Committee and would be replaced,
most likely by the constituency council president. Urban said the
committee had only one meeting in the fall and had not met since.
Geoff Burnham, committee member for the College of Science said
through e-mail that he was a candidate for the Science Constituency
Council and would not be allowed to sit in on the election dispute
hearings.
Several constituency council presidents contacted did not know who
their appointed members were or that there was such a committee.
Bedford would not comment on why there were candidates on the committee
in violation of election code.
“We will not have anyone on that committee hearing these arguments
and rendering a decision that was a candidate for office this year,”
he said.
Bedford said that, to preserve the integrity of the group, he would
not provide a list of committee members, which will be called upon
to decide the disputes.
“We will try to get low-key personnel on the committee,”
he said.
Bedford said he did not know when the final seats would be filled,
but said he was confident it would be done well before the dispute
deadline.
According to the process outlined in the code, the committee must
hold hearings with plaintiffs, defendants and any witnesses.
If there are issues that are not covered in the election code, those
decisions would be made by the election committee advisers who are
Bedford and Jeff Sorensen, student governance and organizations
director. Sorenson said he would not comment on dispute issues.
Bedford said the advisers would be present to enforce the code,
but would not be involved in making the decisions.
“Whatever they decide, that’s what we go with,”
said Bedford.
— Joey Owens contributed to this article.
CORRECTION
In this story, the deadline for dispute hearings
was incorrectly stated. The deadline is May 10.
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