Letters

Voting method exclusive to students abroad By a
vote of six to three on April 3 the Undergraduate Student
Association Council disenfranchised hundreds of students. Although
a member of the Undergraduate Student Association, I along with
many others will not be allowed to vote in the USAC spring
elections. Who are these disenfranchised students? They are the
more than 300 students who leave Westwood every year to study in a
foreign country through the Education Abroad Program. UCLA students
in EAP are enrolled at foreign universities as well as being
enrolled in UCLA. EAP students continue to pay fees to USAC while
they are abroad. This means that EAP students should continue to be
full members in the USA. This however simply does not happen. Full
membership in the association would entail the right to vote. The
election approved by USAC makes no amends for those who cannot be
physically present in Westwood on May 9 or 10. How is it possible
to swipe your BruinCard, sign your name and put your ballot in the
box when you are in Europe, Asia, Australia, Africa, Latin or South
America? There is no absentee ballot and there is no
representation. Thus, there is no equality for EAP students. Some
might believe that EAP students are not fully aware of campus news
and events. That’s not true. Through the Daily Bruin Online,
telephone and e-mail, Bruins half the world away can remain
up-to-date on campus events. Even if EAP students were uninformed
about campus life that would not justify taking their right to vote
away from them. If USAC truly was interested in representing all
students’ opinions they would not exclude any UCLA
undergraduate from voting in the election. MyUCLA voting would be
the most effective way to extend the voting franchise to all
undergraduate students. USAC’s rationale behind not using
MyUCLA-based voting is simply inadequate. They claim that it is not
safe and secure. How many members of USAC do you think use neither
the MyUCLA system nor URSA Online? Most likely none. Does it make
sense for people to use a system if they do not trust its security?
Clearly then USAC’s concern is not with the security of the
election. It appears that the concern is to keep the election from
being as accessible to students as possible. If USAC wants to be a
voice for all students they need to be accessible to all students.
They need to reconsider their decision and implement MyUCLA. Not
all Bruins are in Westwood, but all Bruins should be allowed to
vote. Is that too much to ask?

Andrew Ahlering Third-year Political science
and public policy EAP student at University of Cape Town, South
Africa

Respect for rats as valuable as that for
squirrels There seems to be some outrage over the death of
a squirrel possibly due to ingestion of rat poison, pellets of
which were distributed to control a “rodent problem”
around a construction site near the Bomb Shelter (“Rodent
pellets cause stir near Bomb Shelter,” Daily Bruin, News,
April 20). But what about the plight of the poor rats? Excessive
care is being given to analysis of the squirrel’s death,
while the rats remain presumably slated for destruction by the
painful death of poisoning. Why the double standard? What is a
squirrel after all but a large rat with a furry tail and a cuter
face? The “rats” under attack are probably not the
scaly-tailed European Norway rat, but more likely members of
Neotoma, or wood rat, species, a native Californian group of rodent
common on the UCLA campus. Wood rat faces were the inspiration for
the original drawings of Mickey Mouse; why is it OK to poison
Mickey, but anathema if a squirrel becomes collateral damage?

Pamela Mueller, Ph.D. Postdoctoral Fellow
Department of Physiology