Election Reform Proposal

Spring 2014





























A report by

The United Alabama Project




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Table of Contents

Foreword .................................................................................................................... 1
Statement of Purpose ................................................................................................. 2
Online Voting & The Ballot Box ............................................................................... 3
Faction or Party Identification on the Ballet .............................................................. 5
Penalties for Violations .............................................................................................. 6
Campaign Materials ................................................................................................... 7
Social Networking Sites ............................................................................................. 8

Foreword

This report is divided into general topic sections. Each section begins with recommendations and
then lays out the reasoning behind each recommended change. Corresponding literature used to
prepare this report is available upon request. All references made in the body of this proposal
refer to the most recent available version of the election rules, which at the time of the writing of
this proposal was the Student Government Election Manual 2012-2013. Unless otherwise
stated, any mention of articles or their sections and subsections refers to the aforementioned
document.

The reform we are proposing either in its entirety or in its component parts could be
introduced and implemented for the 2013-2014 election cycle.

Some of the reforms recommend general changes with the understanding that the specifics and
logistics would need to be debated and agreed upon by interested parties, but most reforms
contained within would require no more than an amending of the prior Elections Manual.

A copy of this document and more information about the United Alabama Project may be found
at unitedalabamaproject.com






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Statement of Purpose

The following is a proposal of the United Alabama Project detailing the recommended reforms
necessary to ensure fair and equitable elections given the state of student politics on the campus
of the University of Alabama.

Ignoring a political reality for the sake of propriety is neither necessary nor desirable, and we do
not intend to engage in it. It is the opinion of this board that the election rules in place for the
2014 SGA elections are significantly flawed providing neither impartiality nor fairness to the
election process. Furthermore, this board cognizant of the level of corruption under the current
political regime anticipates significant resistance to election reform. Nevertheless, the board
can not and will not waver in its mission in the face of either success or failure.

Should the reforms contained within this proposal be enacted, the election process will become
significantly less biased and will allow for greater student participation, thereby increasing voter
turnout. The importance of these reforms should not be understated, nor should the intent of this
proposal be misconstrued.

The board desires only to make sure that those individuals best qualified and most deserving be
elected, entirely irrespective of any other demographic, socioeconomic, or ideologic factors.
Essentially, race, religion, creed, nationality, ethnicity, gender, political affiliation, sexual
orientation, social status, economic background and Greek or non-Greek standing are
significantly less important than the moral and intellectual quality of the candidate. Any system,
rule, norm or institution that interferes or corrupts selection based on the quality of the candidate
does so to the detriment of the entirety of the university community students, staff, faculty,
administration, and alumni.

If we foster corruption, apathy, secrecy, and privilege on the campus of a public university, we
destroy the essence of what it means to be a good citizen in its students. Ultimately, they carry
that disfigured conception into their later lives, thereby undermining the very civic virtues that
prevent moral decay and political rot. This civic atrophy benefits no one.

In the coming weeks, the board fully expects the aforementioned principles to be twisted. So, the
board wishes to elucidate its stance. The board does not harbor ill will towards any particular
person or group. It is not motivated by anger or fear or spite. It wishes only to ensure that if all
persons are created equal, some persons are not given more equality than others.


The First Executive Board of the United Alabama Project
Mathew Mecoli, Madison Rose, Andrew Parks & Chase Hudson

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Online Voting & The Ballot Box

Recommendation: Replace the system of online voting with a system of election ballots.

Reasoning: When deliberating over the best system of voting in a Student Government
Association election, the three main concerns are integrity of the vote, voter turnout, and
adherence with the democratic principles on which this nation is based. As it sits, the University
of Alabama uses a purely electronic voting system, wherein students have twelve hours to vote
through their MyBama accounts. The voting system can be accessed through any computer
anywhere.

As a certain Crimson White article points out, voter turnout rose significantly in 2009 when
online voting was reinstated by the SGA. However, the same article also points out that this
increase could just as easily have been the result of a highly contested SGA presidential race in
2009. Furthermore, according to a campus survey administered by the Capstone PAC in the fall
semester of 2005, only 1.24% of respondents who hadnt voted in the Spring 2004 elections a
year with ballot voting cited inconvenience of polling locations or times as the reason for their
lack of voter participation.

A more recent Crimson White article discussed the low voter turnout of the Spring 2013 SGA
elections. In it, several incoming SGA members state that voting is now as easy as it can be
made, and yet voter turnout was exceedingly low. Fewer students voted last year in total than the
vote totals of either of the 2009 presidential candidates individually. With enrollment at 33,602
students in Spring 2013, only 5,489 students or 16.3% of eligible voters cast their vote.
Given that the method of voting has not changed while voter turnout has declined significantly,
an alternative explanation needs to be sought for the decline.

The alternative explanation is that voter turnout is far more influenced by voter sentiment than it
is by online voting. In fact, it is not clear that online voting on its own has any effect positive
or negative on voter turnout. On the other hand, as Richard H. Pildes, professor of
constitutional law at the NYU School of Law phrases it, One of the strongest predictors of voter
turnout is whether voters have meaningful choices. This is echoed by Dr. Michael McDonald in
an article authored by him on the washingtonpost.com shortly before the 2006 midterm elections.

Dr. McDonald is an associate professor at George Mason University, a non-resident senior
fellow of the Brookings Institute, administrator of the United States Election Project, and an
expert in the field of voter turnout. In his article, Dr. McDonald states that People vote when
there is a reason to do so, and predicts that the national voter turnout rate will fall short of 40
percent, but that The fault is not on the voters; peoples lives are busy, and a rational person will
abstain when their vote does not matter to the election outcome.

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In conjunction with questions as to the efficacy of online voting, one must ask if such a system
maintains electoral integrity and if it is in line with democratic principles, particularly since these
concerns might affect the more important variable of voter sentiment. The SGA Constitution
dictates that ballots are to be cast in secret and that each student is to be given one vote (Article
VIII, Section 2, Subsections B & C). It would seem that an online election process, tied to the
students accounts, would ensure that both of these requirements are met; however, this online
system carries with it potential for abuse. Voting conducted on personal computers away from
any oversight allows for a number of ways the integrity of the election process might be
compromised.

Online voting allows for the creation of informal voting stations on and off campus where
students are not just encouraged to vote but coerced into voting for a particular candidate, an act
that would undermine not only an SGA election but the underlying principles of a democratic
election. The ballot box is inherently a private place, but a computer is not necessarily so.

Physical voting stations for SGA elections are in common use by other universities. One strong
example is the University of West Virginia. The UWV SGA outlines their policies on voting in
Article VII, Section (B)(a-c) of their SGA Constitution. This system of electronic ballots
conducted at a number of voting stations around campus could easily be adapted to the
University of Alabama. The use of the already extant ActCard technology to verify voter identity
and prevent voter fraud makes the transition to electronic ballot voting logistically simpler and
cheaper.













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Faction Identification on the Ballot
Recommendation: Amend Article II, Section 1(B)(b) to allow for faction identification on the
ballot. Task the United Alabama Project with maintaining candidate profiles on its website.
Make writing these profiles mandatory for all candidates.
Reasoning: While a desire for students to research candidates is admirable, the political reality
is such that most students do not research candidates, and independent students are
disproportionately burdened with researching candidates. Not allowing faction identification
does not effectively encourage students to research candidates, and makes it much more difficult
for students to organize behind shared principles.
Article 8, Section 3(c) of the SGA Constitution affords SGA candidates the right to organize into
political factions for the purpose of running a campaign. However, such campaign affiliations
rarely occur, and the current system of voting allows no way for candidates who exercise that
right to communicate their affiliation to students during the actual voting process. Candidates are
therefore discouraged from building a strong faction or party identity because that identity will
not be able to be conveyed easily in the ballot box. This puts an unnecessary burden on voters;
that is, it requires voters to research each individual candidate for each individual race before
choosing a candidate. Students are left with an inability to relate themselves to their candidates in
simple, effective ways making the campaigning process all the more costly and difficult.
Furthermore, the University of Alabama currently maintains no system of campus political
parties. While other universities, such as the University of California, Berkeley, facilitate the
activities of several different political parties in order to ensure the representation of all segments
of their student bodies, the lack of such a framework at the Capstone makes it difficult for
qualified independent candidates from all walks of life to attain the resources and name
recognition necessary to run an effective campaign. This lack of resources results in an SGA that
lacks both diversity and healthy electoral competition.
The simplest solution to these problems is to allow students on campus to align with or create
tickets for SGA races. The university must allow some clear, concise way for candidates to make
their affiliations known. In providing candidates the option to run as a part of a ticket that
appears on the ballot, the university can expect more students to be reached and informed about
SGA candidates, thereby leading to a more engaged and politically active student body.




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Penalties for Violations

Recommendation: Amend Article VI such that the punishment for violating elections rules be
a deduction of votes, if not disqualification, as opposed to a fine or community service, and that
if any fines are assessed, they be counted against a candidates spending cap.

Reasoning: The logic behind this switch is two-fold. First, as a general theory, the punishment
of a crime should match in severity and type the crime itself. Violating election rules is a crime
not well redressed by minor monetary fines. Second, a candidate who does violate election rules
is likely not a candidate who should hold public office, regardless of whether or not he paid
fines. If the candidates unethical and unfair practice helped that candidate win an election, then
paying the fines is akin to buying an election, particularly if that unethical behavior changed the
election results.

Instead, a system should be adopted that punishes violations of election rules with a deduction in
votes. For example, door-to-door solicitation of votes from a residence hall is prohibited under
Article III Section 1(E)(c). If one candidate were to do this, they would gain votes in an unfair
manner. The candidate would lose 50 votes for each time that prohibition was violated.

Merely asking an unethical candidate to complete community service hours is, at best, a slap-on-
the-wrist that does nothing to address the fact that the election may have only been won through
unfair practices. If the margin of victory is so small that the deduction of a small number of votes
changes the election results, then the unethical practices can be assumed to have significantly
affected the election. For example, in the 2009 SGA election, the final vote of the presidential
election was 7,323 to 7,062. Steven Oliver, the winning candidate, was convicted of seven
counts of violating election rules and was sentenced to four community service hours per count,
and yet he still took office as SGA president. Had the penalty for these seven counts been a loss
of votes (ostensibly, obtained unethically), the 261 vote margin might have been overturned in
favor of his opposition, Kendra Key.












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Campaign Materials

Recommendation: Amend Article III Section 2(D)(a)(iv) to allow for chalking, given certain
limitations.

Reasoning: Given that candidates running for SGA are limited in their ability to disseminate
information about themselves to the student body, it can be hard for candidates to make
themselves known, thus limiting the meaningful choices of our students. Limited choice leads to
disinterest in the political process. Chalking is an easy and inexpensive way for candidates to
reach as many students as possible, while simultaneously allowing students to be immersed in
the election process.

Additionally, since candidates are limited in their available media outlets, the heart of their
election platforms fails to reach as many of the student population as is possible. Our candidates
cant establish themselves based on their unique political stance. This hinders our election
process because candidates blend together, and thus the political competition is not as great,
thereby decreasing voter interest and turnout.

This is most important for executive positions. As for the senate, the number of candidates would
inundate the campus with chalking, make enforcing chalking rules difficult, and discount that
senate campaign are inherently targeted toward specific populations of campus.

The United Alabama Project suggests the following criteria for chalking:

1) All candidates must file a report stating where they used chalk and what was written
2) Chalking is limited to candidates running for executive positions
3) Chalking is limited only to sites approved by the elections board
4) Chalking on behalf of a candidate who has not approved of that chalking carry disqualification
of any other candidate found to be engaging in or endorsing such actions and heavy penalties for
any students involved.










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Social Networking Sites

Recommendation: Amend Article III, Section 2(A)(c) to include Tumblr, Pinterest & Vimeo
as approved method of mass media campaigns.

Reasoning: We propose the expansion of the approved avenues of mass media campaigning to
include Tumblr, Pinterest, and Vimeo. Each of these social networking sites is free to users and
boasts a large use base. Tumblr manages approximately 168 million blogs, Pinterest has 25
million members, and Vimeo has 102 million viewers worldwide. All three media sites are also
staples on the University of Alabama campus. Incorporating Tumblr, Pinterest, and Vimeo as
approved methods of campaigning allows candidates to more readily engage voters thus
decreasing the cost for voters of becoming informed on the issues and increasing the likelihood
of a high voter turnout. Expanding the avenues through which mass media campaigning can be
undertaken gives candidates a more fair and equitable elections platform.