At the end of winter term, Steven Lockfield had lost outright his bid for a Student Senate seat, which meant he was not a contender in the upcoming general election set for April 16-18.
But now he’s back in the race.
Lockfield lost when he ran against five other students for the social science senate seat. However, Lockfield could not vote for himself: His major is history — an arts and letters program, not social sciences. Lockfield should have been placed in the arts and letters senate race, which was won unopposed by Ben Lacy.
So Lockfield filed a grievance, and the ASUO Constitution Court decided the ASUO Elections Board had erred. They called for a run-off race between Lockfield and Lacy.
“I was very pleased with the court’s decision,” Lockfield said. “This is a victory for democracy, basically.”
The decision is just one of many made in preparation of a general election that has started and stopped several times already. But even though the major grievances have been decided on and the election date has been set, there are still a few things hanging in the air.
At the same time that former ASUO Vice Presidential candidate Jeff Oliver filed his grievance against fellow executive candidates Bret Jacobson and Matt Cook, resident assistant David Christensen filed a similar complaint. The complaints alleged housing rule violations when Jacobson and Cook’s campaign distributed campaign fliers in the residence halls.
Christensen’s grievance, however, was not heard by the Elections Board. In response, Christensen filed a second grievance — this time against the board — for failing to hear his complaint.
Court clerk Scott Austin said that as of Tuesday afternoon, the court had received Christensen’s grievance, but its status is pending.
One more motion, this one filed by former Executive candidate Eric Bailey, has been pushed aside. In a one-sentence decision Tuesday, the court denied Bailey’s request that the court elaborate on its decision to place Jacobson and Cook back on the ballot.
Another question that remains is what will happen to the votes cast during the two days of ballot measure voting before the election stopped. Shantell Rice, ASUO elections coordinator, said that as far as she can tell, those votes have been declared invalid by the court and voting will start fresh on April 16.
The Lockfield decision itself has set in motion more changes for the Elections Board to grapple with.
In response to the confusion about senate seats and majors, the court ruled that the board must compile a list of which majors fall into which category.
Rice said it is not her job to sift through every candidate’s classes to find out if they’re running for the right seat.
“If students don’t know what seat they should be running for, maybe they should figure it out,’ she said.
But Rice also said nowhere in ASUO rules does it say students must run for a seat that represents their major. Even so, she said, someone on the board will probably compile that list either this year or next.
The board, which has five positions, has three members right now.
ASUO President Jay Breslow appointed and the senate confirmed Randy Newnham to one of the empty positions late winter term, and Breslow is still in the process of sifting through applications to fill the final two slots.