UPDATE: Downtown student voters approved the new constitution with almost 90 percent of the vote.
Result: Yes - 88.64% No - 11.36%
*Source: www.asasud.com
Downtown campus students on Thursday voted to ratify a new student government constitution, which included new language allowing a third party to review election disputes after issues last semester.
Christian Vasquez, president of the Associated Students of Arizona State University Downtown, said the change would allow for any candidate disputing a campaign rule violation to appeal to the judiciary board.
“It’s something that we definitely need for next semester for the betterment of ASASUD,” Vasquez said.
During last year’s ASASUD election, two candidates for president and vice-president, Andres Cano and Vaughn Hillyard, were disqualified after accruing too many campaign violations. The two were disqualified after winning 58 percent of the student vote.
Cano disputed the violations but because ASASUD had no process for reviewing any contested violations, Cano and Hillyard had to concede the election to Vasquez and his running mate, ASASUD Vice President Jessica Abercrombie.
Cano said this change is a move in the right direction.
“The election revisions made in this document are a step forward and will hopefully provide future candidates with the assurance of a fair, unbiased appeals process,” Cano said. “If we had safeguards like this in place last year, Vaughn and I would be in office today.”
Vasquez said the change would make the judiciary board, which handles any impeachments and constitutional challenges, more similar to other campus’ supreme courts.
“We thought this would be the perfect thing for them to do because [the judiciary board] does a lot of things similar to the other supreme courts on the other campuses,” Vasquez said.
Voting was open until 11:59 p.m. on Thursday. The results will be posted online Friday and announced at a 1:30 p.m. senate meeting.
The Downtown senate had to approve the constitution before it went to a student vote. For ratification, it required approval of the majority of students voting.
Reach the reporter at ymgonzal@asu.edu
