Electoral College brings candidates to Oregon
If we lose the Electoral College, we can forget about candidates visiting Oregon ever again. In fact, candidates will only have to go to the largest cities in America to win the election. So whatever it takes to win the big cities is what will be promised, and forget about everyone else.
Perhaps the Electoral College could be modified. I am not fond of the winner-take-all system — too many people are then left in the cold.
Just think of all the millions of voters who voted for the loser in each state; all those could be called wasted votes. Politics needs to be more inclusive. It will help if we can get beyond the politics of fear.
Jay Van Orman
undergraduate
French
Boycott NORPAC
We are members of the Wesley Foundation Campus Ministry. Last April, our group began studying the NORPAC boycott. This week our group endorsed the boycott of NORPAC products.
NORPAC is an Oregon growers’ collective producing frozen and canned foods. Unjust labor conditions exist on NORPAC farms. Minimum-wage laws are violated, and workers have been required to pay “right-to-work” fees. Workers are exposed to pesticides, and when they demand protection required by law, they have been threatened and fired. Low wages do not provide adequate housing, and labor camps continuously violate state housing laws. Kraemer Farms is guilty of all of the above violations and was fined for child labor violations.
Oregon farmworkers’ rights to collectively bargain are not protected under the law. The democratically elected union (PCUN) called for the boycott of NORPAC in 1992 after exhausting all other options. NORPAC will not recognize the union.
With such economic prosperity, it is unconscionable that our sisters and brothers who labor to get food to our table are treated this way. As Christians, we must stand with farmworkers in their struggle for basic human rights. We encourage the campus community to support the NORPAC boycott. NORPAC foods include FLAV-R-PAC, SANTIAM, WESTPAC, Pasta Perfect, SOUP SUPREME, canned goods with codes beginning with “E” and bagged frozen foods with codes beginning with “5.”
“… what does the Lord require of you but to do justice, and to love kindness and to walk humbly with your God?” Micah 6:8
Jeb Shehan
Jacob Meyer
Just the facts, please
It’s great to see that the Oregon Daily Emerald has begun publicizing sensationalism rather than facts. As one who has worked tirelessly since before fall term to ensure students’ voices were heard through voting, I find your thoughtless pandering of unsubstantiated rumors (“Enlisting Distrust,” ODE, Nov. 13) is what actually fosters distrust in government. We’ve come to expect such journalism since the national media assailed Florida to spawn controversy 24 hours a day during ballot re-counts.
The ASUO is a student government; we’re not perfect. However, we worked more than one 16-hour day registering student voters, educating them on the issues and motivating them to mail their ballots. We held our job in the utmost regard. The voter list for Yale’s study NEVER “slipped” from the ASUO. No one outside of the ASUO contacted names from this list. This is fact, not the fiction that litters your paper like a tabloid.
To borrow your phrase, it’s a “sorry state of affairs” when the ODE spews controversy rather than congratulates the thousands of students who took part in our democratic processes. Students made a difference in this election.
To those students, interns and volunteers who registered the most students ever at the University of Oregon (only the University of California at Berkeley and the University of California at Santa Barbara registered more students), THANK YOU. Your dedication and hard work is valued. I only hope that next time, your hard work will be appreciated by the Oregon Daily Emerald.
Brian Tanner
ASUO director of state affairs
Editor’s note: After talking to Brian Tanner, we want to correct and clarify the ASUO voter database information presented in Monday’s editorial. Originally, a database was established of all the voter registration information that the ASUO collected. Some of these voters were not students, as the ASUO’s voter registration drive extended beyond the campus. Many of the names on the list did not have phone numbers. This database list was mistakenly given to a student outside of the ASUO and a portion of this list was printed by a student senator. This was the database list from which partisan phone calls were made. This original database was then sent to Yale, Yale filtered through the names and sent back a smaller list to be used by the ASUO for the study. According to Tanner, the filtered Yale list of voter information was not compromised and was seen only by Tanner and ASUO Legislative Organizer Melissa Unger, in connection with the study.
