To the Editor:
When 18 violations were filed in the freshman student government elections, everyone seemed to think that the Nominations and Elections Committee was responsible.
I have received numerous e-mails on the subject, mostly from disgruntled students who feel the NEC should immediately be disbanded. It is time that someone shed light on the fact that the NEC was in no way responsible for the debacle that was this past election period.
The NEC states in its Fair Practices Code that "only during [the election proceedings] may candidates and their surrogates actively promote their candidacies by campaigning. Any act, process or publication which may solicit votes is considered campaigning." If the campaign period had not started, and you posted messages somewhere telling people to vote for you, have you not actively attempted to solicit votes?
On top of this, the NEC also did not disqualify candidates with facebook.com "wall" messages pertaining to the election (before the actual start of official campaigning) if the candidates contended that they did not have prior awareness.
It is my contention that as the owner of a site you should be in control of what contents are on that site. Regardless of this issue, the fact of the matter is that the NEC gave the benefit of the doubt in every situation possible in regards to these violations.
Suppose for example that the NEC tried to list all the ways to not actively solicit votes before campaigning began. Even with the enormous list they would have to compile, inevitably media of communication for actively soliciting votes would not be on the list. Moreover, new means of communicating to voters are always appearing. Trying to list all of the ways not to campaign will invariably lead to people stating that "other ways not to campaign are listed in the FPC, so why not (insert new way to promote campaign)."
The FPC's policies on campaigning before the official election period are clear. The candidates who chose not to follow those practices did so on their own; denouncing the NEC's policies and/or actions in relation to this election is thus not warranted.
Pierre Gooding
The author is president of the senior class
