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In the (approximate) words of President Barack Obama, “Yes it can!” Finally, the ASUC has come up with a bill that would both be actually worth considering and might pass without a shit-ton of useless squabbling. (Cross your fingers … )
Now. You may be wondering to yourself, “What, pray tell, could this magical bill be, that will be cool and awesome and will save the student body thousands of needlessly spent dollars?” The answer, friends, is a bill being drafted by Elections Council Chair Vinit Sukhija that would greatly reduce physical polling stations for the ASUC’s mightily expensive elections. Instead, students would vote –wait for it, wait for it –online.
Last year, only about 10 percent of the votes were cast in person at one of the 13 real, $3,000-a-pop polling stations. Call us crazy technology-worshipping radicals, but might we suggest getting rid of physical polling stations altogether? The strongest anticipated argument against the bill thus far is that voter turnout will suffer from decreased publicity.
But the whole process is already so inbred, and the general non-sign-wielding population cares so little about the elections that we sincerely doubt the mere sight of those polling stations really drummed up that much voter turnout. They’re pretty much just tables with laptops on them, anyway.
And as long-contested Finance Officer Alan Ni once said, “Having more money is always good … ” We couldn’t agree more.
Image Source: Caveman 92223 under Creative Commons
ASUC Considers Polling Station Reductions [Daily Cal]
Tags:Alan Ni, ASUC, ASUC elections, good idea, money, saving, Vinit Sukhija
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Comments:
Nov 16, 2009 at 6:18 pm
Hey Valerie,
I think that’s a great idea. The only problem we would have with removing the AirBears/Eshleman/Anthony Hall block is that it would violate the clause in the By-Laws that mandates at least a 100 foot distance between a voter and a campaigner. We’re trying to see what we can do to work around it, because there does need to be some way for students without computers to vote on campus. I was thinking about maybe removing the ban on the IP addresses in the computer labs on campus, but removing the AirBears ban and having stricter campaigning regulations might work too. The bill is still in the works, so I’m open to any suggestions.
Nov 16, 2009 at 9:44 pm
Hey Vinit,
Can we make the mandated 100 feet between campaigners and voters not just be limited to voting locations but also to everything.
Thanks.
Nov 16, 2009 at 11:13 am
Not to say this isn’t one of the best ideas the ASUC has ever had, but they should probably lift the no-Airbears, no ASUC-controlled-buildings restrictions if they’re going to go through with it, so as not to exclude people who don’t have their own computer or internet at their place of residence.