Students voted “yes” to both proposed ballot measures in the Associated Students of the University of Oregon’s special winter election. Now, language including the Erb Memorial Union will be removed from the ASUO constitution, and all student incidental fees will be streamlined through ASUO’s annual budget process.
Just 6% of the student body voted in the election. 71.74% of voters voted in favor of measure one, which removes the EMU from the ASUO constitution and eliminates any EMU-related officer from ASUO.
54.84% of voters voted in favor of streamlining all student incidental fees through ASUO’s annual budget process. This means organizations that are not directly part of the university will no longer be able to use the referendum process and cannot be financed through the ASUO budget.
Moving forward, all on-campus organizations, affiliated with the school or not, will have to go through the annual budget process and present their budget needs directly to the ASUO Senate. No organizations will be able to access referendum funding, which ASUO members cannot distribute and organizations are able to access through student signed petitions.
The annual budget process occurs July through February to discuss and finalize how the ASUO budget will be distributed. Now, all student-led organizations and those that are not part of the university directly will be going through this process.
ASUO’s Contracts Finance Committee Chair Natalie Hawkins proposed this measure because “we shouldn’t give special treatment to outside organizations.” Hawkins stressed the importance of equality through the funding of organizations. She believes that all organizations should be going through the same budget process.
The only program that has utilized referendum funding in the past was the Oregon State Public Interest Research Group. Preceding the election, OSPIRG members informed students of their concerns, and urged students to vote “no” on measure two – which 663 students did.
OSPIRG members were concerned about having less input on where their budget goes. OSPIRG’s main source of funding from the past few years has been through referendum funding. Now, they must go through the annual budget process.
“OSPIRG will keep fighting for students on campus, we will continue to do everything we can to make sure students feel represented, ” Prisilla Moreno, OSPIRG statewide vice chair, said.
OSPIRG’s budget is secure for the 2024-2025 school year, so for the time being they will not have to change how they typically operate and will receive $152,440 in ASUO funding.
After the conclusion of the election, OSPIRG members began to inform students on their call list that many students’ names were not in ASUO’s voting database, and that some students were unable to cast their votes online. Because of this, OSPIRG said, students had to submit a physical copy of their vote to the ASUO office.
In an email correspondence with the Daily Emerald, ASUO Election Board Chair Grigorii Malakhov said, “There were a couple issues that are connected to the way the voting system works and how the ASUO membership [whether the I-Fee was paid or not] appears on Engage.”
Students that had difficulties voting were either graduate students who did not have a uoregon email in Engage or students who were not enrolled for on campus classes for the previous term.
Malakhov said the election voting issues were resolved. He said only 10 students had to vote in person, and when ASUO members were notified of the students who were unable to vote, and they invited them to vote in person — which all 10 students did.
