Candidates prepare to distribute campaign flyers to students

Hoards of students either uniformly wearing beige or blue
T-shirts, some wearing buttons and some wearing chicken or pumpkin
suits, will all officially be allowed to join in handing out fliers
along Bruin Walk starting Tuesday.

Leafleting for an office in the Undergraduate Students
Association Council will coincide with the first day of voting via
the MyUCLA Web site. And while some candidates will persistently
stand on Bruin Walk for a good part of their day, other candidates
will designate slate representatives to do the work for them.

Slates, groups of students with similar ideologies that share
their resources and campaign together, have been preparing and
campaigning since last week.

Bruins United handed out fliers listing its platforms with
coupons attached from various Westwood eateries, while Student
Power! candidates distributed slate fliers during Spring Sing last
Friday.

This pooling of resources has often been cited as an advantage
to running with a slate because consequently there are more
campaign materials candidates can work with.

“The nature of slates is that it is advantageous for
students to be in them for sharing resources,” said Nathan
Lam, the Elections Board chairman.

Because the Elections Code does not recognize slates, the fliers
advertising slate platforms alone would not be deemed illegal.

“The problem with recognizing slates in the Elections Code
is that you would solidify them even more, so I’ve learned
that it is better to just leave it alone,” Lam said about the
possibility of recognizing slates when looking at potential
violations.