As the ASUO election remains at a standstill, members of student government are trying to solve a number of lingering, unanswered problems and prepare for the damage already caused by rulings they said have hurt student voices on campus.
Even if the injunction that halted voting Wednesday night on candidate and ballot measures is lifted, an election probably won’t happen until early spring term because it can’t happen during Finals Week or Dead Week, which starts Monday.
The Multicultural Center Board and interested MCC members met Thursday afternoon to decide how to proceed with the grievance filed against their ballot measure. After a half-hour of discussion, board members voted unanimously to fight the grievance.
“If this is something that we need and something that we want, then we need to fight it to the end,” MCC member Dominique Beaumontesaid. “Basically, the MCC is a joke if we don’t fight this.”
The MCC has seven days from Wednesday to file a rebuttal to the grievance.
But Rob Raschio, the chief justice of the ASUO Constitution Court, said regardless of the outcome, the disruptions will lower voter turnout and hurt campus democracy.
“The point is the damage is done,” Raschio said. “I can’t consider two days of voting, in this situation, a fair process.”
The court first stopped the general election Sunday night only hours before it was scheduled to begin, so the court could hear a grievance from disqualified Executive candidates Bret Jacobson and Matt Cook. The ASUO Elections Board took them off the ballot after the pair distributed campaign fliers in residence halls.
But the court quickly changed part of its ruling Monday to allow voting on ballot measures for OSPIRG and the Multicultural Center. University President Dave Frohnmayer must receive a student fee total from the ASUO by April 1. A vote on the OSPIRG and MCC ballot measures would be necessary before spring term to make that deadline.
Many members of student government, including Raschio, said they were surprised when Justice Alan Tauber enjoined the entire election again Wednesday night after five student senators filed a grievance challenging the legality of the MCC ballot measure.
Only one justice is necessary to enjoin an election, and the majority of the court needed to overturn it fell one vote short late Wednesday night.
Raschio said that since the court first stopped candidate voting but not measure voting, Tauber should have stopped voting on the MCC ballot only. He added that Tauber should have communicated better with the court before making his decision.
“It was a mistake by Alan Tauber,” Raschio said. “We easily could have met tonight. He decided to jump the gun and move in a hasty manner.”
Tauber said he would not discuss the case.
But Mary Elizabeth Madden, one of the senators who filed the grievance Wednesday, said the court needed to act quickly because ASUO rules give precedent to ballot measures over court rulings.
She said a situation could occur in which the MCC measure passes and the court rules against it, but Frohnmayer could still approve the measure.
The court will hold a hearing to decide the grievance and Jacobson’s appeal March 16. Regardless of the decisions from that hearing, the ASUO has begun work to bend the April 1 deadline.
ASUO President Jay Breslow, Raschio and Senate President Peter Watts met with Executive Assistant President Dave Hubin on Thursday to discuss how the funding measures could be added into the final fee total.
Hubin said the deadline exists so the administration has time to review the budget before it is set for final approval to the Oregon University System.
“We do give this a very thorough review, and we do need time for discussion,” Hubin said. But he added that Breslow could prepare an appeal for an extension so voting could occur the first week of spring term.
Breslow said he will start working on an informal budget proposal that includes everything but the money that could be granted to OSPIRG and the MCC, then ask for the extra few days for voting.
Whenever voting starts again, the ASUO will need to decide whether to count votes cast Wednesday before the injunction or start the election from scratch.
Breslow said he believed the tally would be saved, but it would be a final decision for Elections Coordinator Shantell Rice, who could not be reached for comment.
“It would be like the election never stopped,” Breslow said.