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ASG elections committee to revise rules
The Advocate
After the biggest election in MHCC history, the Associated Student Government Elections Committee is beginning to rewrite the elections packet.
ASG Elections Committee Chair Luke Harrison said due to getting several complaints and issuing four violations, the committee has decided to change campaigning rules.
He said, "We found that some complaints were valid, but a lot were just accusations."
Harrison refused to say the number of complaints made verbally and by email but said there were more this year than other year and the number of voters was nearly twice as many than any other year.
Harrison said that all complaints received by the committee were being held onto because, "to us, unless there is some type of proof, it's hear-say. We followed through with the valid complaints that we got that we were allowed to follow through with in the time-frame that we had, so by 11:59 p.m. on the Thursday before [the announcement of the winners]."
He added, " We have never had this many voters in the past and a lot of new things came up. It was almost too much for a committee of five."
He said they are going to re-write the packet and limit the number of times voters can vote from their hand-held devices, including phones and iPads.
College Center Manager David Sussman said, a large component of the packet rewrite is having less voting stations so candidates can be monitored better during campaigning.
He also said, "These complaints happen every year, but they're magnified this year because of the number of voters and there were four more candidates this year than in years past. "
He said, "The Elections Committee has been great, they've gone above and beyond and have agreed to stay on longer than their stay to see things get resolved."
Sussman said the committee has been considering adding two members just to monitor candidates to make sure they're campaigning ethically.
Both Sussman and Harrison said they hope to see the elections packet finished by the end of the term with room for improvement this next year before elections in Spring 2013.
Harrison said of the proposed rewrite, "The way I look at it, the better we can make it for next year, why not keep working on it," adding that he is prepared to rewrite the packet using notes he has taken on this year's election as well as the old packet as a template for the style. But, a major update, he said, is to make it more clear to candidates what is allowed and not allowed and what will warrant a violation.
"We actually want to tighten it up a lot," he said.
Harrison also said he welcomes recommendations from students on changes to the election packet. Recommendations can be sent to [email protected] or put in their drop-box in the College Center.
The Advocate reserves the right to not publish comments based on their appropriateness.