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Undergraduate Student Government Tempe violates election codes


Senator Nicolas Parra proposed SE50 at the USG meeting on Tuesday, Feb. 11, which focused on violations of election codes and bilaws. (Photo by Ryan Liu) Senator Nicolas Parra proposed SE50 at the USG meeting on Tuesday, Feb. 11, which focused on violations of election codes and bilaws. (Photo by Ryan Liu)

Undergraduate Student Government Tempe Senator Nicolas Parra will introduce two bills at the Tuesday evening meeting of USG to fix violations of bylaws and to correct the election codes, which have violations throughout.

The election code violations in question include incorrect submission deadlines for candidates, no public office hours posted for the election commissioner and deadlines that were not met in appointing the election commissioner, her assistant and a Supreme Court Justice.

The two bills being proposed Tuesday will address any conflicts of interest by having an assistant elections commissioner confirmed by the senate and will also address the unfilled seat on the Supreme Court bench.

 

 

By not appointing a supreme court justice by the selected date, the compensation for USGT President Jordan Davis and the other members of the executive branch should have been suspended, Parra said.

According to Article 1, Section 1.2 Subsection B of the senate bylaws, failure to nominate a Supreme Court Justice by Oct. 1 of each year shall result in the immediate suspension of compensation for the USG President and his board. The Supreme Court possesses the power to disqualify the interpretation of the election codes and because there is no one in the position, the laws cannot be upheld.

Parra is proposing the elections be suspended until further notice so all violations and problems within the election codes and bylaws be rectified.

“The best thing right now is to suspend all elections at least until they get their act together, and if this happens, we will have to push all of the deadlines back,” he said.

Senate President Pro Tempore Tristian Trevino acknowledged the election codes were in violation and said he is working to fix the posting of public office hours and the deadline date issues.

“I will make sure the website gets updated,” he said.

Michelle Daniels, the election commissioner, was not appointed until well after the deadline.

“Nobody was applying so they had to keep the process open,” Trevino said. “Every year, it is hard to get someone to apply, and it was really hard to get someone to fill the position and to get the information out to people to apply.”

USG Tempe President Jordan Davis said his office is working to fill all positions and recently filled the assistant election commissioner position with Shane Pund. Pund has not yet been confirmed by the USG senate.

“We are currently looking to fill the Supreme Court position,” Davis said.

Elections cannot be held until a Supreme Court justice is appointed because of problems which may arise during the elections process. Parra said he wants the position filled immediately.

“Since there is no justice, we can’t hold elections,” Parra said. “I wasn’t aware of this situation until I started combing through the bylaws when I was addressing the conflicts of interest, and I’m sure President Davis and his entire executive board were since it is their job.”

Parra summed up the bill by saying the executive board simply didn’t do its job.

Reach the reporter at jshanco2@asu.edu or follow on Twitter @joey_hancock


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