ASG election under scrutiny

A group of MHCC students feel that 554 out of approximately 10,000 enrolled for Spring term are a vastly insufficient number to choose student body representatives who direct the spending of a $1 million budget that comes from student activity fees.

Mt. Hood’s recent spring elections for 2014-15 Associated Student Government (ASG) leadership attracted 554 total votes, 218 of which went to the winner, president-elect Alma Pacheco, and her running mate, Cristian Urzua.

That amounts to about 5.54 percent participation in the voting.

Three students – Beka Haugen, Michael Potts and David Sause – say the student body needs far more representation in ASG voting. They have started a petition for immediate recall of Pacheco and Urzua and to stage an election where the student body is more fully represented. They also claim ASG didn’t follow its current election rules this spring.

“It states in the petition that it rescinds the current student election until a better system is established,” said Potts.

“I mean, when the ASG sets up the election, and the majority of the (eligible) voters didn’t vote, like, (95 percent) of the students didn’t vote, it shows that the election is a giant failure,” said Sause.

More MHCC voters “should know what our student body gets to do,” said Sause, regarding ASG’s activities. “Especially if they’re using a million dollars – that’s huge. If, as students, we have a body like that that gets to use a million dollars, I think we should be able to get better (voter) representation than that.”

“It seems so small,” said Potts about the low voter turnout. “If ASG elections are what we’re beginning our year on, as far as ASG outreach – it seems very small and underrepresented.”

To date, Haugen, Potts, and Sause have gathered close to 400 signatures.

Meadow McWhorter, Mt. Hood’s student events coordinator who supervises the elections committee, said the college’s voter turnout is usually higher when there are more tickets (president and vice-president paired teams) to vote for.

Last year’s election attracted 957 votes, with five tickets to vote for. In 2012, 1,086 students voted on seven tickets, while in 2011 there were 501 votes cast between three tickets, according to records supplied by McWhorter.

“The more tickets you have, certainly, the more votes you have,” McWhorter said. She called this month’s voting “very comparable to years past.”

Current ASG President Laura Aguon said that 500 votes is a big deal, in reality.

“Five hundred students voting is huge because even in the United States, it’s hard to get people to vote, and the fact that we got 500 students on our campus — (which) has such a commuter lifestyle… such a commuter culture — I think it’s a great thing because that’s 500 students (who) expressed their voice.”

Potts also claims the 2014 elections weren’t conducted under ASG’s bylaws. “I’d like to see the bylaws either followed, or get changed, ’cause apparently they weren’t used last time.”

ASG’s bylaws state that “Polls should remain open for a week” with “week” being undefined. The polls in this month’s election opened Monday, May 5 at 12:01 a.m. and closed at 11:59 p.m. on Thursday, May 8, making the polls open for four days. Voting was conducted online, where each student entered their ID number and birthdate, then clicked on the desired ticket.

Four-day elections have been going on for a number of years, it turns out. “Since I have taken over the elections, and even before I have been involved in the elections process, they’ve always been open for four business days,” said McWhorter. “It might be something that our student senate could look into — having it open for five business days.”

To change a bylaw, members of the ASG senate have to go through a time-consuming process, one that lasts up to two weeks, Aguon said.

Potts said the senate should respond, however necessary, to the petitioners’ complaints.

“It’s kind of in (the) senate’s hands to figure out what needs to happen from here,” said Potts. “Essentially, we slapped a petition on their table asking for a recall of the candidate. I don’t know if they officially have a process for that.

“They basically have to go back to the students and decide what they want to do. It’s not really my place to speak for the entire student body. I just know they signed a petition that we put forward,” he said.

McWhorter said that “currently there is nothing in our ASG bylaws that would recall an election.”

Aguon said she hopes the petition is the result of a genuine concern, meanwhile. “I hope that the students that are doing this are doing it out of making sure that this is the best thing that is for students and comes from a good place,” she said.

“I wish that they were at the forefront in getting the elections committee better ideas rather than this, because this (creates) a lot of division (between) ASG and the student population.” If the petitioners were “100 percent (engaged) in the beginning, we wouldn’t have this issue now,” she said.

McWhorter encourages the students to join ASG, if change is what they seek.

“I certainly would encourage the students that feel passionate about a recall or whatnot to apply to be a part of ASG and get involved to be a part of the change that they’d like to see,” she said.