Comments on: Judicial Council Upholds Vote On GA Memorandum

by: Manny

Sun, 23 Jul 2006 01:44:12 +0100

At any rate, I am sure it would have received more yes votes if it was a referendum that only included the JCouncil aspect. Many of the no votes that people told me they casted were as a result of the financial parts of the referendum.

by: Manny

Sun, 23 Jul 2006 01:42:01 +0100

The only part of the referendum that required a vote of the students was the J-council portion of it, which was the only part that changed the constitution.

Maybe it would have been better to split it up, sign the rest once the senate passed it, and only let the Jcouncil portion go to a vote of the whole students (It would have definetly made what students were voting for a lot more clear).

Interestingly, the parts that received the most criticism were the portions that did not require to be part of a referendum. I guess intentions were good in that we wanted to give a choice for students to vote on everything, but it might have ended up confusing them.

by: Beetle

Sat, 22 Jul 2006 17:20:57 +0100

I don’t think the Council concluded that the “abstain” option should never have been given, nor do I think it could, based on the language of the bylaws and Constitution. While it may not have been a good idea to include it, without something to stand on, the Judicial Council couldn’t possibly have ruled that the Elections Council actually failed to follow the requirements of the law.

Of course, as folks know, I don’t like the Judicial Council having discretion, on democratic principle. In the case of the ASUC, with an incompetent/unprincipled Senate, this causes ridiculous situations such as restructuring the ASUC with 30% of the vote. Still, the alternative, with the Judicial Council trying to determine what the law should be (which would be the case for the Judicial Council to rule in Ben’s favor here) is dangerous.

Out of curiosity, Mike, if you were ruling, how would you rule, and what would you write?

by: Mike Davis

Sat, 22 Jul 2006 12:12:34 +0100

If this were a piss-ant voter opinion poll, or maybe even something changing a bylaw, I would agree. Tie goes to the runner, the Council shouldn’t apply a super strict level of scrutiny. But you don’t screw with the foundational document of the association. You don’t go changing it unless you’re absadamnlutely sure the students want it changed. You can’t be sure here and it shouldn’t be changed. I respect this Council, and this is a valid decision given the text (though I have to criticize the decision, if we’re going by the letter of the law the “abstain” option should never have been given and the vote should be overturned on that alone).

That said, I think this is the biggest mistake the Council has ever made.

by: bobby gregg

Sat, 22 Jul 2006 12:07:25 +0100

“It effectively turns an Abstain into a No, which was not necessarily what the voter intended (that was probably more along the lines of “I have no idea what this is and/or I don’t care”).”

While I agree, I would also point out that they probably didn’t know it would make it easier for the referendum to pass

There just shouldn’t be an option for abstain — let people leave the question blank if they have no answer.

by: also anonymous

Sat, 22 Jul 2006 11:51:13 +0100

I think they made the right decision here. The language and choices of the MOA were botched, but there’s no fair way to fix it at this point. If — and I may have this wrong since I haven’t been paying too much attention — we overturned the MOA because there was actually a minority of yes votes when considering the abstentions, that seems to distort the purpose of that third option. It effectively turns an Abstain into a No, which was not necessarily what the voter intended (that was probably more along the lines of “I have no idea what this is and/or I don’t care”). Hopefully the people involved will be more careful next time.

by: Ben N.

Sat, 22 Jul 2006 11:42:41 +0100

try again

by: bobby gregg

Sat, 22 Jul 2006 11:32:32 +0100

tried downloading that file, webfiles is asking for a user/pw

by: Beetle

Sat, 22 Jul 2006 10:55:59 +0100

I should hope the Judicial Council doesn’t care who wins the elections when they make their decisions. I don’t think they could’ve taken a confrontational stance here because they had nothing to stand on.

It’s really not the Judicial Council’s job to fix things that other folks screw up, if they screw it up in a manner that is still in line with the legal authority they have.