Backing PIRG
(In response to the April 13 editorial, “Pushing PIRG.”)
As a current USG senator, I am very familiar with Arizona PIRG. Throughout this long process, Arizona PIRG has demonstrated student interest in establishing their organization in various ways. The most recent was through the student government elections.
However, the process of the elections was not fair or adequate for PIRG. Their question was to be presented to all students voting on the group equally and uniformly. However, there was actually a different question presented on each ballot and the only campus that even had the dollar amount was the Downtown campus. Having a link is not the norm.
In 2008, when the Arizona Students’ Association ran an initiative drive, the exact language from their petition was presented to students on the ballot and did not require a link. The omission of the question as stated in the initiative petition was a misrepresentation of the request of the students signing the initiative petition to bring the explicit language requested before the students voting in the election.
Furthermore, this problem was brought to the elections departments’ attention immediately, and even though the site was down for multiple hours at a time, the elections department failed to fix the question. There was no paper ballot to backup the site, and the elections department literally turned people away form the polling location.
Also, The State Press mentions that no one abstained from voting on PIRG. That’s true, because PIRG was the only item on the ballot that did not have an abstain option! Other concerns The State Press seems to think are not important, is the fact that students could vote multiple times on PIRG. Whether this helps or hurts them, it doesn’t matter because it violates one of the most fundamental principles of democracy: one person, one vote. It seems strange PIRG was the only item on any of the ballots across all four campuses that students could vote on more than once.
One thing The State Press continually fails to do as they cover Arizona PIRG is mention why they are even working so hard in the first place. PIRG is not just trying to start their organization; they are trying to solve real social issues and will continue to fight to make our community a better place.
Gregorio Montes de Oca USG Senator
