Election time is coming. It is not just marked on my calendar because I have to begin cleaning out my office, but it represents the most fundamental, and certainly overlooked, process within Rensselaer student government. The Union Constitution calls for the Student Senate to run elections. The Senate delegates this responsibility to the Rules and Election Committee (RNE) which consists of probably the busiest students on campus during elections. It is a job that always goes unrewarded, is extremely stressful, and at times can be in the crosshairs of controversy. In the past, this committee has been chaired by students with unquestionable integrity and strong leadership. Such names as Mary Kate DiTursi and Matthew Ezovski come to mind—who both put off sleep, class, and other essentials to see that a proper and seamless election occurred.
With that said, I would like to contrast their efforts with the breakdown in the election process that occurred last year. For those of you who are not familiar, I was the alleged perpetrator of numerous violations last year ranging from using Union resources to run my campaign to using my position and influence on campus to gain an advantage over opponents, culminating in a Judicial Board case and hearings with RNE a day before the ballots were to be printed. RNE decided that by storing nomination forms in my personal belongings that were in my office, I was using the Union’s resources to gain an unfair advantage.
The worst of it came when RNE dealt with my nomination signatures. This is where candidates must gather signatures from the student body to get their name placed on the ballot. Grand Marshal and President of the Union candidates must obtain 500 validated signatures. Through a series of decisions, they invalidated hundreds of signatures that I handed in, and added hundreds more as a penalty. The final tally they required for my candidacy was well above 1,500 signatures, with over 1,000 coming in two days–all because I had solicited signatures in the Commons Dining Hall, something all candidates had done that year and many years before.
In a series of hearings, the Judicial Board and RNE were tasked with deciding my candidacy. The toughest part of getting re-elected was not the countless speeches, nomination meetings, or interviews, but dealing with a committee who let their power go to their heads and were very close to taking the decision of who was going to be PU out of the students’ hands and into their own. Instead of holding elections, they came very close to deciding them. It was during that time when I almost lost complete faith in the student’s ability to run their own elections. Instead of a popular vote, RNE dangled my candidacy back and forth­­—having abandoned reason and rationale.
I do not tell my story to vindicate my name, but to show that the process broke down, and if we are not extremely careful, it could very well break down once again. I was not the only candidate that fell victim to this particular board—there were others. A freshman class president candidate had all of his signatures invalidated because of RNE’s error in the handbook for a deadline. He gave up—just like I was ready to. I am not sure exactly where RNE went wrong, but I have never seen a process spiral out of control so quickly. RNE’s purpose should be to consistently run fair, equitable elections—not abuse the power the students and the Senate have entrusted to them.
