Crossing the Rubicon
From Tomorrow (Thursday)'s issue of The California Aggie, a guest opinion:
Guest Opinion in California Aggie: (original version)
While I have nothing personal against the individual members of the Elections Committee, it has come to my attention that a great deal of injustice has been, and continues to be, perpetuated by the Committee. In my position in the judicial system of ASUCD people often come to me with complaints about Election matters. While these are not in my jurisdiction, I point them all in the right direction and am deeply saddened to see incident after incident end in no resolution. I do not believe the members of the Elections Committee wilfully intend to commit malfeasance, but I do believe a spirit of justice is chronically lacking in their operations.
I am writing this not because I want to upset the members of the Committee or because I think that complaining about it is going to solve the problem; I am writing this because I want both the candidates and members of the Elections Committee to know that rigorous adherence to the rules and justice in ASUCD are goals that ARE attainable. I want you to know your rights, your recourses, and that you are not alone.
Most alarming of all, I have had former members of the Elections Committee itself come to me with accounts of their erroneous handling of elections complaints. A former committee member I talked to had been under the impression that he was sworn to secrecy about the Committee’s actions and therefore never went public with his complaints. I think its most urgently important that the members of the Elections Committee itself know that not only do they have a right to speak out against perceived injustice, they have a moral responsibility. Once a complaint is formally filed with SGAO the Elections Committee is to thoroughly investigate and post their official finding within two days - including the original complaint, all evidence considered, and the reasoning behind the finding. In short: everything about the process is then public record.
Another category of harmful misconception is that rules regulating candidate behaviour can be made AFTER a specific candidate exhibits a specific behaviour, and applied to that candidate retroactively. This is not in conformity with western law theory. Two recent examples: (1) certain candidates asked the Elections Committee for a list of words they could not say during the candidate forum. The Committee refused to provide a list. A candidate then used language the Committee deemed inappropriate and had his microphone immediately unplugged. (2) certain candidates had their statements altered, not for length or clarity or even libellous content (the statement was undisputedly true) but because someone apparently did not agree with it being there. In both these examples the Committee is failing to act impartially.
I find that most election candidates are unsure of this system, do not know that they can appeal Elections Committee decisions to Student Judicial Affairs Campus Judicial Board (if filed within three days), and most of all regard their experience as an isolated incident. These are not isolated incidents.
In conclusion let me again stress that I do not believe the Elections Committee is wilfully obstructing justice and I mean no offence to the individual members. This is an institutional problem that has existed since before any of the current members were on the committee, it is born from a less-than-optimal spirit of rule adherence and bad advice. My only interest is the greatest justice within ASUCD. If you have a question or concern about any matter relating to justice in ASUCD elections or ASUCD at large, please do not hesitate to contact me. As elections are not within my jurisdiction I can thoroughly guide you through the complaint & appeal processes.
Injustice breeds in silence. The truth shall set you free.
Kris Fricke
Chief Justice, ASUCD Court
krfricke@ucdavis.edu
Guest Opinion: As published
Commentary on the Aggie's Edits
The original version above actually has two grammatical errors fixed that were wrong in the submitted version and despite all their changes, did not get fixed. The more grievous one is "...I mean to no offense to the individual..." Not only did they leave the mistake in there, but they DID find the time to change the PROPER (Irish) spelling of "offence" to the silly American "offense." But what I'm really bothered about is that they expanded SGAO, which I thought they might, but they elaborated it WRONG - Student Gov't Administrative Office they spelled out as "...Affairs Office." Though 99% of the campus no doubt will have no idea, the people I intend the message for and those I have to deal with on a regular basis are going to think I'm an idiot for a mistake I didn't make.
Also they cut out a large part of what was the entire reason I wrote it - that I wanted anyone with concerns over the Committee's behaviour to contact me (the last paragraph).
There are a myriad of other unpleasant edits they made which I believe are, without exception, to the detriment of the peice, but one more thing I'd like to mention specifically even if it ranks very low in the amount of substansive damage; I neglected to title the piece so they gave it a dumb title of their own imagining ("Elections Are A Serious Matter").
Oh and they cut off "the truth shall set you free."