The Leader

It's springtime again and that means Student Association elections are coming up soon; April 26 and 27 to be exact. Some of you are running and some of you are excited to vote, but we can all agree that most students at UWM will allow these days to pass without any effect on their daily routine. Evidence of this is borne out across many campuses and is made even more evident on this campus with the numbers from last year's election. The total voter turnout in the spring of 2005 was in the area of 2,000 students out of an official enrollment of 24,596, or about 8%.

These are some very dismal numbers and you have to wonder what effect this evidence may have on this year's elections. One solution we are not doing is entering the 21st century and using online voting as there was way too much in-fighting that had to get done first before this project could be started. The Student Association did look at the issue, though, and has passed new rules to solve the problem of growing apathy within the student body ...less communication with the students.

The election campaign period, the only time that students are usually ever aware that the SA exists (other than scandals), has been cut back from a couple of weeks to two days before the polls open. Parties and candidates cannot communicate with UWM students in any manner that could be interpreted as an instruction to vote in a particular way. While educating the student body of a candidate's platform could be fair game, it's on a fine line and the act of merely comparing the candidates' stances could be interpreted as campaigning.

Violations of these rules may already be occurring. With the recent UWM Post article there were two, of three, Presidential candidates that were interviewed with one stating, "...I am the best candidate to handle matters..." With the Presidential debates being planned for dates prior to April 24 (They have to be or the results could never be printed in the student papers.), candidates could be opening themselves up to even more violations just by participating and answering questions. People wearing party pins are also being photographed by members of other parties in an attempt to document these types of supposed violations.

With less information about the candidates and parties, how will you know how to vote this year? A solution to this has already been worked out, of course. Under the new rules candidates are allowed to submit brief essays, less than 200 words, describing themselves and why students should vote for them. This information will then be made available to the student body on the days of the election at the polling locations per the Independent Election Commission's discretion (an essay may be rejected by the Commissioner if she feels it is inappropriate).

Assuming a maximum of two parties with full slates of 52 candidates, and assuming that each candidate uses all 200 words, that's only a collective 20,800 word essay you would need to read while standing in line at the polls. For comparison, that's close to a 38-page Word document or about 25 times longer than this editorial. So on April 26 or 27 don't forget to read the SA supplied campaign tome and vote for the candidates or party you feel have described themselves, if allowed to by the Commissioner, the best.

On the topic of communication with our student government, I leave you with some questions that we should all be asking our SA officials on that proposal to use a spare $100,000 in segregated fees for some new projects next year.

What kind of dealings must occur to create a state in which the SA is in possession of a spare $100,000 and how can we eliminate having such a large reserve in the future?

While the goal of increased funding for the UWM Bike Loan Program is to create a more mobile student body, why aren't we trying to use some of the $100,000 to help BOSS get some of their hours back and thus achieving the same goal?

Why are we trying to create complicated new programs with large liability and enforcement issues like the Student Crisis Loan Fund when we don't take care of existing programs?

Why, when SA officials always talk about wanting to lower student tuition, does this proposal include spending $70,000 to create new programs instead of covering the costs of existing programs? Remember, for each new program that gets created we must either increase the amount of segregated fees collected from students or decrease the funding of existing programs and services.

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