Senate forum on constitutional proposal poorly attended

Members of a committee charged by the Tufts Community Union (TCU) Senate to evaluate the constitution presented their proposal for a new document before a sparse audience at an open forum last night.

The most substantial change proposed by the Constitutional Reform Committee (CRC) would replace culture representatives on the TCU Senate with "community representatives," which Senator Chike Aguh said was more controversial than the other changes.

Aguh and Sam Dangremond, who is also backing the new constitution, said they were "not entirely optimistic at first" that a consensus would be reached about the culture representative system.

"Although the discussion got heated, people are happy" with the proposed transformation of the culture rep system, they said.

Freshman Senator Chloe Snider commended the CRC and said "there was a lot of compromising."

The other proposed amendment would allow more than two candidates to run for the TCU presidency. As Dangremond explained, "a simple plurality doesn't reflect the true desire of voters."

The committee has proposed a rank-voting system, which is used in countries such as Australia, in order "to most accurately reflect what voters actually want," Dangremond said. The candidate with the fewest first-choice votes would be eliminated, and the ballots of the people who marked that candidate as their first choice would be redistributed to count towards their second choice. The process would be repeated until one candidate received a clear majority.

Dangremond cited the 2000 presidential election as an example of how the process would work. In that election, he explained, people who voted for Ralph Nader would probably have ranked Al Gore as their second choice. Once Nader was eliminated from the race, his votes would have been redistributed to Gore, perhaps giving the former vice president a greater majority over George W. Bush and a less contested election.

The CRC is currently gathering 250 signatories in order to bring the new constitution before the entire student body in a referendum. Members of the committee predict little opposition to the proposed constitution's passage.

But the issue may not generate much interest, as the Senate has long had problems overcoming student apathy about its activities. Many of its forums are attended by only a few students; at yesterday's event in Hotung Caf?©, most of the 12 students in attendance were senators.

"It is important people take a moment to understand the changes, some of which are quite drastic," Senate Vice President Andrew Potts said.

The amendments will be put up for a campus-wide online vote on April 24, when the presidential election will also be held.