Out of one election and into another. Admittedly, the upcoming elections for ASUU probably don’t register on students’ radars like the national elections did, despite students having a greater, more direct effect on the outcome of these school elections.
The ASUU elections draw another parallel to the national elections in the form of grievances, and the related intrigue. Both the Peak and HOUSE parties have seen accusations brought against them, but the alleged violations are minor and detract from an election process that is already struggling with voter apathy.
The grievance complaints include the HOUSE Party campaigning on Marriott Library Plaza and poster policy violations. Several of these grievances have already been dismissed and should be considered a nonissue. The respective campaigns should not let these small scandals serve as political firepower.
HOUSE presidential candidate Nick Ferre agrees that the grievances detract from the campaigns, saying that it is “clear in the dismissal that [the grievances] are just a tactic … The HOUSE Party wants to run a good campaign, avoiding mudslinging.”
Mudslinging is exactly what the election would devolve to if the campaigns allow small policy violations to dictate their strategy. It would prove to be a further distraction for an election process that has been historically light on substance.
This isn’t to say the grievance hearings don’t serve a purpose. The campaigns should be running on equal ground and there needs to be a method of redress for less-than-legitimate election tactics. However, using the grievance hearings as a political tool is itself a less-than-legitimate tactic. Shifting public focus away from issues in favor of minor bureaucratic details is evidence of a campaign that places student benefits next to last.
The ASUU elections do hold weight. The winning candidates will become responsible for a tremendous amount of U funding. More than this, however, university elections serve as a learning experience. We should not accept the idea that politics inherently come with scandals and mudslinging. We should be using the campus elections to serve as an idealistic example of what we want the local, state and federal elections to look like.
Both parties should move away from the grievances quickly and return to campaigning on their platforms. If issues arise in the future, the case should be presented, defended and then let go.
In reality, the parties could hold on to these issues for the rest of the campaign, and might well do so. Unfortunately, the grievance process has the ability to dictate the election outcome if students let it.
The real grievances should arise, however, if the parties cannot stand by their platforms and instead let the minor details do their fighting for them.
“The importance is to get students engaged in the election process,” Ferre said. That should be the goal of both sides — to get students to be aware of the issues and then to make them care enough to vote.