The Committee on Student Life (CSL) threw out the results of the Tufts Community Union (TCU) Judiciary election this month, leaving the group unable to plan for the fall semester over the summer.
Although the TCU Senate, the TCU Judiciary and the Elections Board (ELBO) have put more effort into communicating with the student body, campus politics were marred by student apathy and electoral controversy this year, much as in previous ones.
On Wednesday, May 12, the CSL overturned the results from the Judiciary election.
As a result, there will be new elections for Judiciary seats at the beginning of the 2004 fall semester.
The CSL is a government body made up of both student and faculty members.
The CSL decision came after sophomore Jordana Starr appealed the election results. Starr was disqualified from the Judiciary elections earlier this spring because she campaigned by sending e-mails to class lists without ELBO pre-approval.
Starr sat on this year's TCU Judiciary board, and was running for reelection.
The CSL ruled that due to flaws in ELBO's election rules, candidates for the Judiciary seats were at different levels of advantages. The rules listed only three forms of allowable campaign advertising, but according to Starr, ELBO had "unwritten rules."
"They didn't tell all candidates the same thing," Starr said. "And ELBO is constitutionally bound to hold fair elections."
In a statement following the appeal, CSL co-chair Barbara Grossman acknowledged "that the use of new technologies available to candidates, which could not be foreseen by the Elections Board, possibly provided an unfair advantage to some candidates."
As a result of the decision, ELBO is required to rewrite a set of comprehensive rules for candidates this summer. They must be submitted to the CSL for approval by Aug. 1.
According to the March 2003 ELBO bylaws, if a complaint is made against an election, "ELBO will hold the hearings, except when the complaint is made against ELBO, in which case the complaint will be forwarded on to the TCUJ."
Starr's complaint involves both ELBO and the TCUJ, sending the issue to the CSL.
Once the CSL approves the rules, ELBO can then hold new elections. "ELBO has considerable amount of work in front of them," Starr said.
The ruling had an impact on the new Judiciary members, as their positions are now subject to a revote.
Jake Resnicow, who was to be next year's Judiciary chair, had many plans for the summer. These included organizing the fall retreat, reviewing all hearings and decisions from last year, and giving temporary recognition of student groups at the very beginning of next term.
"Because I am no longer chair or even a member of the [TCU Judiciary], I am completely unable to accomplish many of these important tasks," Resnicow said.
Without a functioning Judiciary at the beginning of the fall semester, students may be more aware and more concerned with the student government's activities. This year's campus politics were marked by student apathy, which was a hotly discussed issue during the recent presidential elections.
TCU presidential candidates Joe Mead and Dave Baumwoll argued over how to deal with student outreach. "Right now people don't know what Senate can do," Mead said. "The outreach this year failed."
2003-04 TCU President Chike Aguh, however, believes the TCU Senate took steps in the right direction. "The Senate in the past never made the effort [of outreach]," he said. "It was a success that we made the effort."
Along with current TCU President Baumwoll, Aguh co-authored the TCU Senate Outreach Bylaws. According to many TCU senators, the bylaws have had both failures and successes.
Aguh and Baumwoll created two categories of Outreach Bylaws. One type, the group bylaw, was not well received. Every student group was contacted to see if they wanted a senator to act as a 'point person' to represent them at meetings.
The student groups, however, did not react as hoped. "We didn't have very good response from groups," Baumwoll said.
The second type of outreach bylaw is the constituency bylaw. Such bylaws required senators to update their classes with public forums and e-mails.
Aguh said that the best type of student outreach is through advertising the Senate's accomplishments.
TCU Historian Andrew Caplan said that with no bad blood between the candidates, it's a possibility that voter turnout was low due to lack of interest. "Controversy breeds enthusiasm and interest," Caplan said. "While I'm not advocating controversy, I definitely think it gets more people to look into it [the elections]."
Yet Aguh says that there's a limit to controversy's ability to attract votes. "Past elections have been mean-spirited, which further depressed voter turnout," he said.
ELBO placed voting stations across campus and increased advertising from last year, yet the percentage of students who voted - 30 percent - dropped two points from last year.
ELBO Chair Abby Lillianfeld said that last year the presidential election also had a referendum on which students voted. "People had opinions about the referendum. Whenever you have something with the presidential election you have higher turnout," she said.
ELBO is considering making elections more than just one day long, but "not within the next three years," Lillianfeld said, as the current contract with Student Services is to hold elections between 9 a.m. and midnight.
While the quality and progression of campaigns may help garner student attention, Lillianfeld believes that ultimately voter turnout is up to ELBO. "We had ads in the Daily, we had table tents, we sent out an e-mail to every student with instructions on how to vote," she said. "Next year we'll try to put more pamphlets in more places."
