Editorial: Long-overdue changes to USAC Election Code help ensure transparency

On Tuesday night, the Undergraduate Students Association Council finally voted to amend its flawed and often vague Election Code.

On the whole, the changes council made will go far in ensuring fair and transparent elections in spring, although there was one kink in the code left unaddressed by the most recent update.

First, the council voted that students who campaign will now have to disclose their slate – the group they collectively campaign with – on the election ballot. Otherwise they must specify their lack of affiliation with a slate and declare themselves independent.

This measure ensures transparency and displays necessary information for students who might not be familiar with each candidate’s slate affiliations.

The council also voted for a change that allows the Election Board to recognize the existence of slates in student elections, a long overdue update for a student government that is dominated by the politics and power plays of slates. The Election Board now has the ability to sanction entire slates for campaign violations instead of sanctioning only individual candidates. This increases accountability both for slates as a whole and for individual candidates, as their actions can now negatively affect the campaigns of the entire slate.

Additionally, and perhaps most importantly, candidates now have strict spending caps for their campaigns, and they’re required to disclose the amounts of their campaign finance contributions and all donor names.

This board has continuously called for an update to the Election Code that sets limits to spending and requires all candidates to disclose their donors. USAC elections should be held to the same standards of transparency as any public election in California, and this change in the code does just that.

However, one issue that remained unaddressed in Tuesday night’s changes is the role of student media in campaigning.

Last year, the three USAC presidential candidates opted out of talking about their platforms in a Daily Bruin radio program because the Election Board chair at the time, Anthony Padilla, warned that it could be seen as campaigning and that the candidates might face sanctions for appearing on the show.

Student media provides the student body with crucial information regarding academics, safety and other matters concerning university environment, including student government.

As a responsible student government who wants voters to be as informed as possible before casting a ballot, USAC must guarantee that student media has access to candidates without being impeded by an Election Board chair who defines “campaigning” as an interview with the newspaper.

So while Tuesday’s vote markedly improved the transparency and general functioning of campus elections, future Election Board chairs and USAC councils should take the initiative to further amend the code as problems arise to promote fair student elections.