Students voting in this Tuesday and Wednesday's Student Government Association elections will be working under new election rules. The rules, approved in Feb. 2009, were altered to change the penalties candidates and tickets faced with infractions.
One major change was the ability for candidates or tickets to be removed if they commit a set number of infractions.
"In previous years, candidates would break the rules then pay the fine without any consequences," said Dana Gilmore, chief justice for the SGA.
For the 2009 elections, candidates or tickets that have more than two major or three minor infractions will be taken off the ballot or any write-in vote.
"If they're committing these infractions and they're willing to take those risks and break the rules, they're not fit to run student government." Swanson said. "There shouldn't be an endless number of infractions."
Also changed was the punishment for infractions committed during the set campaign period.
For the 2008 election the punishment for a minor infraction was a loss of 5 percent of a candidates' votes, or 10 percent for a major infraction, regardless of when the infraction occurred.
The 2008 elections faced controversy when a budget violation led to a major infraction, costing the yourSGA ticket 10 percent of each member's votes.
The outrage from the election, which included a disputation document based after Martin Luther's 95 Theses, inspired changes to the policy.
In the 2009 election, a ticket will only lose votes if an infraction occurs during the election period. For an infraction occurring during the set campaigning period, a campaign would lose a set percentage of campaign material such as fliers and banners.
Also under the new rules is a ban on custom T-shirts for candidates or tickets. Gilmore noted that in past years campaigns had members posted outside of voting areas wearing their campaign T-shirts.
"It was subliminal messaging to voters," Gilmore said.
Also, all campaign material, which includes fliers, banners, and a-frame display must be taken down by midnight Monday. The only exception to this rule is Facebook groups and Web sites created by candidates and tickets. Gilmore noted the new rules would promote accountability from candidates.
"It keeps them on their best behavior," Gilmore said.
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These changes were brought about because a survey suggested that this would be the way that would satisfy most students. To suggest that Ryan Smith and his band of toadies had anything to do with it is just obscene. Sidenote: Even under these rules, a vote percentage would still have been lost last year, as budget evaluation doesn't occur until after campaigning ends.
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