Lyssa Beyer

As many of you know, tomorrow’s big day of voting across the country is not just for major party primaries. The big day also involves students on our campus deciding an important amendment to the Student Body Constitution. As the primary author of the amendment, I’d like to encourage your attention and support on this issue.

Within the day, all students will be receiving an e-mail describing the referendum and process. Then, tomorrow morning, all students will be receiving another e-mail with a link to the referendum and instructions that state the referendum will be open from 8:00 a.m. to 5:00 p.m. This is the first time in UW-Eau Claire history that students will be holding an official referendum electronically. Other UW schools have been doing it for years, but this is the first step for us. If it is successful and everyone seems to prefer electronic voting over paper ballots, then Student Senate will consider using electronic voting for more elections in the future. If you like or dislike this system, let us know so that we can make better decisions in the future.

What is this referendum about? Basically what we are asking you to decide is if we should change the general Student Senate elections from the “first or second week of March” as it states in the Student Body Constitution to the “second or third week of April.” I’m writing to ask for your support in this change because I think it will help Student Senate work better on this campus and collaborate better with other UW System student governments.

I can tell you from my experience this last year that having the election in early March stifles what could potentially be a lot more progress out of your student government. First, nearly all of the other UW System schools have their elections in April, which means that their new student leadership doesn’t take over until May. When we won the election in March and took over in April, there was an entire five week period that got lost because we didn’t have the support of other student governments from around the state. Any attempts at contacting those outgoing student leaders at other campuses failed. By aligning our elections with the elections at other UW System schools, we are setting ourselves up for better communication and more collaboration among the campuses.

Another problem we have with our current election date is that by having the election in the dead center of the semester, it is more difficult to get anything accomplished or organized. Currently, when the old leadership comes back from Winterim, the election is only five weeks away. When the new leadership takes office, there are only five or six more weeks of the semester and it is hard to get anything started when you’ll just have to restart it again in the fall.

Our proposed solution is to change the election dates to April. This will allow for the old leadership to continue their progress longer into the spring semester and the new leadership will have the summer to get ready for the next full year of their term. And this time, they’ll have the support of other student leaders across the state.

It is also important for me to tell you that if this referendum passes, the current Student Senate leadership will remain in office until the April election, about five weeks longer than normal. This is a consequence that would happen either this session or next session, and we believe it would be best for it to occur this session.

In the end, I hope you consider participating in the referendum question tomorrow, Feb. 5. Because it is an amendment to the Student Body Constitution that needs your support to pass.

If you have any questions or concerns, do not hesitate to contact us. My e-mail is [email protected]. Thank you for your attention to this issue.

Ray French is the Student Body president and guest columnist for The Spectator.