COLUMN: The farce that is Election Day

From Jeffrey Snyder's, "Snyde Remarks," Fall '98 From Jeffrey Snyder's, "Snyde Remarks," Fall '98Tuesday was an absolutely gorgeous day. The sun was shining, there wasn't a cloud in the sky and the temperature was well into the 80s. It was the kind of rare Philadelphia day that somehow always shows up in the glossy admissions brochures and makes me remember exactly what I love about Penn. As I sat myself down and ordered my customary burger, I couldn't help but think about the sad state of student politics on this campus. I decided to run for the Undergraduate Assembly in this election, which for the first time ever combined the class board elections with those for UA and University Council. It was also the first election in a couple years to contain a meaningful referendum. All of this together brought campus politicos out in full force to attempt to mobilize the apathetic student body. That, of course, while trying their hardest to find ways to thwart their opponents by citing obscure provisions of the Fair Practices Code, the Nominations and Elections Committee's guidelines for an "unbiased" election. The NEC has done a decent job in recent years improving the Fair Practices Code. It removed the tyrannical "press gag" rule, which prevented candidates from being quoted in The Daily Pennsylvanian. And it has also put forth a good effort to make candidates more accessible to the student body through events such as Monday's "Meet the Candidates" speeches on College Green. On the other hand, the NEC really fouled up the class boards elections by increasing the number of signatures required to become a candidate. There really is no benefit to making the candidacy process so difficult that people who are interested choose not to run. As a direct result of the prohibitive requirements, there are no candidates this year for many of the school representative and class officer positions. Shouldn't the election be based on who is most qualified as determined by the electorate? It doesn't benefit anyone to create a plethora of uncontested and unopposed offices. Despite the fact that some offices were not contested, there was no doubt that the battle for each class' president was hard-fought. Senior Class President candidate Sarah Gleit, a College junior, toted a poster and stood at the intersection of 36th Street and Locust Walk flirting shamelessly with passersby. Wharton junior Clive Correia, a.k.a. "Batman", was also out and about, distributing copies of his proposed schedule of screamers for "Feb Club" in his attempt to thwart Gleit, a.k.a. "The Penguin." Impressed with his schedule, I couldn't resist the temptation to remind the socialite that the first and last screamers always occur at Smoke's -- a minor point he has missed. As my burger arrived, so did Junior Class President challenger Lisa Marshall. This is Marshall's third year running for office with no victories to her name, and after careful observation, I figured out part of the reason behind this losing streak. Marshall walks around asking, "Are you a sophomore?" But she doesn't realize that even members of the Class of 2000 won't respond to that question on election day when they know it will be followed by a quarter-sheet being thrust at them, accompanied by a puppy-dog look and a campaign slogan. Speaking of the puppy-dog look, Senior Class Vice President candidate Robin Grossman has this one down to a science. How could you not vote for her? After a brief conversation with Wharton junior Mike Bressler of Red and Blue fame, I looked up as NEC Vice Chairperson for Elections Michael Brody walked by wearing a bouncer-like security headset. I hate to break it to him, but I think extensive election security is unnecessary at a school where students don't care enough to vote, never mind sabotage the election. I should add that if security is really such an issue, the NEC should consider going back to the ballot box system rather than asking voters to stuff their completed ballots into a file folder. Perhaps Brody was worried about the militant campaign that the Student Activities Council has been conducting on behalf of its referendum. SAC members want the UA to return to them the $30,000 allocated to a discretionary fund for the purpose of funding IFC-sponsored events. This attempt to undo the work of fairly-elected UA representatives might explain why Engineering senior Ben Goldberger is still concerned with campus politics just weeks before graduation. He hovered by a trashcan next to the Castle for hours passing out little flyers, which were probably about as effective as the huge SAC flyers that discussed the referendum in tiny print. Sure, I'm going to stop on my way to class to stare down for 10 minutes and strain my eyes to read your stupid manifesto. Ironically, SAC failed to mention in the extensive referendum explanation the alleged $357,492 in its reserve fund. Somehow it was missed here that SAC routinely misleads its own groups. So Matt and I settled our tab and went off to cast our ballots in this much-hyped election. I couldn't help but wonder as I was walking home how exciting election day could be if Penn students actually cared about student government.