[16432] in APO-L
Student Union Election advice
daemon@ATHENA.MIT.EDU (Stephen C. Wang)
Wed Mar 19 17:50:20 1997
Date: Wed, 19 Mar 1997 14:34:54 -0800
Reply-To: "Stephen C. Wang" <swang@UCLINK.BERKELEY.EDU>
From: "Stephen C. Wang" <swang@UCLINK.BERKELEY.EDU>
To: Multiple recipients of list APO-L <APO-L@VM.CC.PURDUE.EDU>
Hi there brothers!
This is Stephen Wang, Admin. VP for the Gamma Gamma chapter at University
of California, Berkeley (remember The Lightbearer at Nationals?). I'm a
newbie on this mailing list, but I'd appreciate your input on the following
concern.
Our chapter is debating whether or not to participate as
pollworkers and ballot counters for our university (Sweet 16, baby!)
student government elections. At the beginning of the semester we forwarded
a memo to the Elections Council Chair stating that we wanted to provide the
manpower for these elections in alliance with the Circle K group on our
campus. Traditionally, the pollworking/ballot counting positions are
temporary part-time jobs open to students who want to make a little bit of
money ($6/hr). However, the benefits of APO/Circle K providing manpower is
that it would be a fundraiser for both of our groups (potentially around
$6K to split between the two of us), the Elections Council would have an
easier administrative time disbursing the money, and both APO and Circle K
are apolitical, service groups who want to provide service to the campus.
The merits of the memo was subsequently debated at the next Student
Government meeting. The Elections Council liked the idea, but wanted to
open up the pollworking/ballot counting opportunities to ALL student
groups. Some student senators were opposed to allowing student groups to
participate in the elections because of a potential conflict-of-interest.
Mainly, the senators believed that the prime principle of "non-biasness"
would be violated by having student groups which were funded by the student
government, working for elections. In the past, our APhiO chapter has built
safeguards by being apolitical. We have refused to endorse any student
candidates, even when they are brothers in our own chapter. In addition,
our chapter previously was responsible for running campus elections back in
the 50's and 60's - a tradition we'd like to return to (Historical note:
this tradition ended when the student government declared themselves
independent from the University - remember the Berkeley riots?).
Since that meeting, the Elections Council has decided against
reserving pollworking/ballot counting positions for student groups. We have
come to an understanding, however, that our brothers can work on an
"individual" basis and then volunteer their paycheck (i.e. sign over) to
APhiO. They've even helped us along a little by providing the necessary
work forms ahead of time. This has been done without the knowledge of the
student senators who initially had reservations. Now, our Executive
Committee still has a few remaining concerns.
Here are the HUGE advantages of doing this project:
* Gigantic fundraiser for our chapter - money which we could
definitely use since we're hosting the Region X conference.
* A rare opportunity to provide a great service to the campus.
* The election "service project" falls directly before our
Activation which means it's the perfect project for members/pledges who
need to complete their requirements.
* Potential for building better relations with our student government.
Here are the disadvantages of doing the project:
* Potential conflict-of-interest: There could be problems if anyone
complained that the ballot-counting/pollworking was unfair because APhiO, a
funded student group, was working at it. I believe we're actually MORE fair
since the regular pollworkers probably have more connections to student
govt than we do.
* The money fundraised from the project would be in the form of
paychecks (i.e. W4 taxable earnings) to our individual members. We'd like
to receive the paychecks in our group's mailbox and then have our members
sign over the checks to APhiO. Is this too complicated?
* Probably depriving some temporary workers of their income. Out of
the 70-80 pollworking jobs available, we have enough people who want to
work the elections to fill 30-50 of those positions.
I would like to hear your input. What potential legal or political pitfalls
could our chapter fall into? Are we being too careful/paranoid? Personally,
I'm am extremely split over this project. The advantages are so GREAT, but
this conflict-of-interest thing might have it's own merits. Please respond.
Thanks
In LFS, Stephen Wang (Philip H. Prince)
