To the Students of the University of Oregon,
What do you do when you’re about to lose a race? Easy. You try to get your opponent disqualified.
At least that is what Miles Sisk and the We Are Oregon slate have done. Helena Schlegel received more votes that Sisk during the first week of voting, and she looked poised to win again in the second week. Luckily for Sisk, his slate got a little “divine intervention” in the form of a senseless ASUO Constitution Court ruling against Schlegel.
Through of all this, I badly for Helena Schlegel and the UO Forward slate. They’ve working hard to try to win the election the good ‘ole fashioned way – talking with students, calling their friends, and reminding everyone to get on DuckWeb and vote by Friday. The ruling against them put crippling restrictions upon their ability to campaign throughout the rest of this week. It is clear that ASUO election rules need to change. It is our duty as students to exercise our right to VOTE for who we feel is the better suited candidate. Personally, I feel confident that Helena Schlegel is that individual.
Sincerely,
Aiden Long
As a UO student over for the past three years, I’ve come to expect childishness behavior from ASUO campaigns. This year is do different. This time, Miles Sisk and his We Are Oregon slate filed a complaint against his opponent, Helena Schlegel and the UO Forward slate for – get this – petitioning skyrocketing tuition rates.
Surely we can all agree that tuition rates need to be controlled. We Are Oregon, however, did not see the opportunity to unite for a shared cause. They saw this as an opportunity for a sleazy political maneuver in which they try to get their opponents removed the ballot.
It would have been nice to have a frank debate about the role of student government and how to spend our student fee money. Instead, we get childish complaints about petition circulating. Oh well… There’s always next year.
-Dakotah Schattler
Dear UO Friends,
The We Are Oregon slate must be pretty insecure about their prospects for winning the ASUO elections. Their strategy has been essentially this: Stand around campus with bright shirts and take pictures with cute animals, and if that fails, try to get your opponents removed from the ballot because winning based on merit and issue-based campaigning isn’t a possibility (which is not surprising if you’ve looked at We Are Oregon’s platform).
Think about that for a minute. Their slate’s strategy is to remove the choice from the students’ ballots. That doesn’t sound very democratic to me.
So, in spite of the attempt to limit my choices, I’m going to exercise my right to choose. I’m going to choose the UO Forward slate this week, the student leaders who are actually out there working on serious student issues like tuition affordability, not the high school politicians who only care about concerts and “going Global”, whatever that means. I hope you’ll join me.
-Shawn Stevenson