Don’t Let Them Throw Out Our Votes! Oppose The Gagging Of The Students! Stand With Us This Wednesday!
Yesterday, Thursday, May 22, the De Anza student body Elections Committee confirmed a financial grievance against the United Students Coalition.
In filling out their election campaign budget report, USC made a mistake and left $3 out of their financial assessment.
The elections committee ruled that this constituted “premeditated” theft of school funds and plan to punish USC by discarding 10% of votes cast for them.
A 3% victory is considered a “landslide” in DASB elections. No candidate has ever beaten another by more than 5%. The discarding of 10% of USC’s votes is therefore an effective disqualification from the race.
The De Anza Student Senate is supposed to be modeled on the United States Congress and other republican forms of administration. However, when American candidates, or candidates in other countries, are convicted of electoral fraud, they are punished financially or criminally. No one has ever had an arbitrary number of their votes discounted, because that would be completely undemocratic. This decision by the DASB Election Committee is a slap in the face to everyone who voted in the recent DASB elections, for USC or any other candidate or bloc.
We have one more chance to appeal to overturn this decision. Students for Justice entreats any and all De Anza students to attend the Senate meeting this Wednesday, May 28, at 3:00 PM, in the De Anza Senate Hall (which is in the bottom floor of the Campus Center, better known as the cafeteria building) to stand in protest against this ludicrous, undemocratic maneuver. We will be making signs ahead of time, at a time and place to be posted here when it is decided. Everyone is invited to make their own signs, too! Please stand with us!
May 23rd, 2008 at 9:44 pm
DASB has gone way too far. A $3 inconsistency is such a trivial matter that it could be solved by fining the campaign personally. Punishing the voters is a completely anti-democratic move by people who misjudge their own powers.
This is definitely something that ought to be brought to La Voz so the students know what is going on. I wouldn’t want to burn any bridges with the body, however if they want to act in an un-democratic fashion we could bring it up to a higher organizing body within De Anza.
May 24th, 2008 at 8:07 am
It’s too late to put an article in La Voz.
We already tried to appeal to the elections committee.
Wednesday is our last chance. There is no higher organizing body that will help us. If the student senate won’t listen to us then there’s no bridge to burn.
May 24th, 2008 at 9:40 am
This is a personal insult to us voters who trusted this “democratic” process and took time out of our lives to vote for the candidates we felt were most qualified. For DASB to completely throw out our votes over something so nugatory is truly disgusting.
We all need to stand together on Wednesday to show DASB that we will not allow our votes to be discarded. What they are doing is a violation of our rights and we cannot let it happen. This will be our last chance to overturn this unjust and ridiculous ruling, so let’s all show up in numbers and defend USC!
May 26th, 2008 at 10:32 pm
I agree with your assesment that discounting votes is undemocratic but you’re reporting some misleading facts. They were $3 over per person because they filed their forms as a group. The actual $ amount they were over is way much more than $3. I can’t remember the actual number but it was between 50-100 dollars.