Expect one on Monday

Sean and I are busy with International Week and Night until late on Sunday, so don't expect an update until Monday. But we both have a lot to say.

Election Results: Coming soon

A certain ninja told me that the results of the election will be announced at 5:00 p.m. at the ASUO office.

**Update** Emma and Getachew won. OAT only won three seats. But they won the journalism seat, so hopefully my department will be well represented.

Michelle Haley doesn't believe some incidental fee paying students should vote

All OAT Facebook group members recieved the following message:

THE ELECTIONS BOARD REFUSES TO GIVE US THE RESULTS BECAUSE THERE IS A SMALL GROUP OF PEOPLE WHO TAKE ENGLISH CLASSES AT THE UO, BUT ARE NOT STUDENTS, THAT COULDN'T VOTE.

So they are incidential fee paying students, but they shouldn't be allowed to vote? That's pretty unprincipled if you ask me.

Crazy Shenanigans

(Check out the ODE News blog for more info)

First Michelle and Ted were dropped from the ballot, then the University of Oregon administration orders the UO ITC not to remove them.

Also, readers can see firsthand how "good" of a friend Deborah Bloom is.

OATFAIL

ON THE GRIEVANCE FILED BY DAVID GRIFFIN AGAINST “OREGON ACTION TEAM” CAMPAIGN 

[April 14, 2009] 

DECISION OF THE HEARINGS COMMITTEE. 

I

      On April 13, 2009, David Griffin (hereinafter Petitioner) filed a grievance against the consolidated campaign of the “Oregon Action Team” (hereinafter Respondent) with the ASUO Elections Board in violation of the University of Oregon Conduct Code § 3.j.(B), Oregon State Law ORS 471.410(2), and the Election Rules 2.1 and 2.4. The Petitioner was informed from an anonymous source that the Members of the Respondent’s campaign were furnishing alcohol to minors in support for their candidates, which the Petitioner claims was bribery. The Petitioner requests that under the Election Rules 6.9, 7.2.d, 7.2.d(i) that the candidates be removed from the ballot.  

II

      Pursuant to Article 12 § 5 of the ASUO Constitution, the Elections Board “shall interpret the Election Rules on request and shall have the authority to hear complaints of violations.”

      Pursuant to the ASUO Constitution Article 13 § 5 states that the Elections Board “shall have the authority to hear complaints of violations. The Elections Board shall have the authority to act as hearings officers and form a Hearings Committee that must include but is not limited to three Elections Board members.” 

III

      Due to the function of the Elections Board, the Board will only be addressing the Petitioners concerns regarding the Elections Rules. The Petitioner accuses the Respondent of violating Election Rule 2.1 and 2.4.

      Based on credible evidence that has been provided to the Elections Board, the Board has found that the Respondent’s be held responsible for the actions that took place at the party in question, pursuant with Election Rule 6.1. Evidence provided has shown that the Presidential Candidate for the Respondent’s campaign was aware that said party was going to take place and that some members of the Respondent’s campaign would be putting stickers on items to be handed out at said party. This conflicts with statements made in the Oregon Daily Emerald (ODE) by Presidential Candidate for the Respondent’s campaign where she asserted that any alcohol with stickers affixed to the must have been provided by opposition candidates.  It should also be noted that the Presidential Candidate of the Respondent’s campaign commented in the ODE that she had handed out stickers for free to students which is also a violation of rule 2.4  

IV

      Due to the severity of these actions and taking into consideration that they are also in violation of Oregon law, the Board will be permanently and irrevocably removing the Executive Ticket of the Respondent’s campaign from the ASUO Elections ballot on April 15, 2009. The Board has chosen to remove just the Executive Ticket of the Respondent’s campaign, instead of the entire slate, on the stipulation that the names of other members of the Respondent’s Campaign and their constituency present at the party in question be given to the Elections Board by 5:00 p.m. On April 15, 2009. If these names are not provided, the Elections Board will remove all members of the Respondent’s campaign from the Ballot on April 16, 2009. If these names are provided by 5:00 p.m., only those who have been recognized as being involved in these violations will be removed, in addition to the Executive Candidates of the Respondent’s campaign

                                        It is so ordered.

The last part of this ruling is fucked up, plain and simple.

On another note, OAT should know that if they play with fire, they should expect to get burned. As should every other candidate. 

Election Results: Most students don't give a rat's ass

Earlier, I ran a poll on this website asking visitors if they thought ASUO was serious or not. Here is what I came up with:

It's serious stuff: 13 votes (50%)

LOL @ ASUO: 9 votes (34%)

ASUO?? OMGWTF: 4 votes (15%)

So the people that visit this blog and take ASUO seriously outnumbered a group of twitter users who think ASUO is a joke and a group of old school interweb users who think ASUO is a joke. Combine the tweeters with the old schoolers and you get a 50/50 split.

But that poll is misleading. First of all, I'm sure some people voted twice. Second, people who visit this site have some sort of interest in ASUO, but enough of those people think ASUO is still a joke.

Third, the apathetic don't even bother visiting this site. I know that can be inferred from the second point, but I think this point speaks volumes to ASUO general election turnout. 

This year, only 20.5 percent of students voted in the ASUO general election. That's an increase over last year. That also means that 79.5 percent of students don't give a damn. 

But some of those 4,108 students that did vote still think part of the election is a joke. Here are some of my favorite candidate write ins:

Don't Give a Rat's Ass

That Guy

Dog Shit

Deez Nutz

None of the Above

Clown

Samual Adams *note the spelling :(

The problem isn't outreach; it's that student's don't give a damn. 

Rules? What Rules?

If candidates cannot follow election rules, they should not be elected. If the institutions holding those elections cannot effectively enforce those rules, they should not make those rules in the first place.

So when the elections board ruled that the Oregon Action Team wouldn't be allowed to campaign on Wednesday, should they be punished for ignoring the election board's ruling?

Denying an individual's ability to campaign is a violation of the first amendment. On top of that, the activities that constitute "campaigning" are impossible to define, and any sort of enforcement is left to the discretion of too few people.

Just as a side note, I know the election board coordinator, Aaron Tuttle, and happen to think he's a very decent person, but I do not trust any single individual to keep their individual biases separate from their rulings, especially when their rulings are not based on rules that are objective.

So how is "no campaigning" subjective? What if I walk up to Michelle Haley and ask her if I should vote for her? If she says "yes, vote for me and the rest of Oregon Action Team," is she campaigning? If that is campaigning, should she say "no, don't vote for me?"

But on the other side, why the hell didn't OAT file on time? Were they anticipating this sort of ruling and trying to make some sore of statement?

That sort of tactic is stupid. Stupid Stupid Stupid Stupid Stupid Stupid Stupid Stupid Stupid Stupid Stupid Stupid Stupid Stupid Stupid Stupid Stupid Stupid Stupid Stupid Stupid Stupid Stupid Stupid Stupid Stupid Stupid Stupid Stupid Stupid Stupid Stupid Stupid Stupid Stupid Stupid Stupid Stupid Stupid Stupid Stupid.

Stupid.

At least, in this sort of election, it's stupid. I've said it before and I'll say it again: this election is all about tactics. If candidates want to win this election, they need to sacrifice ideology when that ideology conflicts with effective election tactics. This is not the case on a national level, where people actually give a damn about the candidates they are electing (and where the candidates face much greater scrutiny from the public).

So why invoke needless scrutiny? Why not file on time?

Unless of course, OAT has something to hide...

**Update!!** The elections board decided that they cannot enforce the election packet rules. I'm assuming this is because they feel that they cannot constitutionally restrict any slate's right to campaign (yes, it is a right) or because the logistics of restricting speech are impossible (as I pointed out in this post).

Hat tip to Kai Davis (via twitter: @asuospew) for the update.

"There's no mistakes on our site"

Today, I was ambushed by Nick Gower (Students First vice presidential candidate) and his attack dog, Deborah Bloom. Gower had approached me earlier in the week wanting 'a minute' from me, then left before I could chat with him. They both ran into me as I was leaving the EMU.

Bloom: "We don't have any grammatical mistakes on our website."

Me: "How many words is 'press release?'

Bloom: "Oh, we fixed that..." (But not before I pointed it out on this blog)

Anyway, Gower and Bloom kept arguing with me that they didn't have any grammatical mistakes on their Facebook page.

I should have just left it at that. 

I should have just smiled, walked away and said "have a nice day." It would have been more entertaining for me (I wonder how much time they spent pouring through their page and searching for other errors) and it would have upset them more. 

But being the nice guy that I am, I informed them that they used an ellipsis in their poster incorrectly (none of them knew what an ellipsis was until I explained that it was that "dot dot dot" thing). And they even argued about that. 

More importantly, they were arguing with me about grammar. Grammar is important in that it needs to be used correctly in order to be taken seriously (will students take a candidate seriously who cannot spell "press release" correctly?), but it is not important enough that candidates need to seek out people who call them out on their mistakes and vent their frustrations. It would  be much more productive to sift through the page, make any  corrections that need to be made and move on. 

But of course (contrary to the feelings of ASUO executive hopeful Michelle Haley), campaigning brings out the worst in people. 

I hope the rest of the ASUO hopefuls don't take offense when someone notices a grammatical mistake on some of their campaign material.

Students First: Politically motivated, grammatically inept

I finally found the platform for the Students First slate! They look like they have a rock solid platform. Here are two of their goals:

Making sure students in the res halls know their rights (Resident hall students are traditionally unaware that they have the right to free speech, own firearms [in theory] and to remain silent after arrested. For some reason, the residents in my hall thought they had the right to keep illegal drugs in their room too. Perhaps Students First will educate them if elected.)

Daily pressreleases to the Daily Emerald (Hopefully they do not use whoever set up their facebook group. 'Press release' is two words, not one. And by the way, sending press releases to a news outlet every single day is the best way to get ignored by them. The best way to keep the media involved: do things that are actually relevant to students.)

Supporters and potential supporters of the Students First slate will enjoy deciphering cryptic campaign promises (making the UO environmentally and fiscally sustainable) and dramatic political statements ("Students First embraces the differences that allow the ASUO to have only one bias: students.") However, supporters will have to deal with the slate's inability to use the English language and grammar to properly and effectively communicate (from the slate's poster: "Creating practical policies... not personal crusades").

Lol @Nick Gower

In today's Daily Emerald, ASUO senator and vice presidential candidate Nick Gower has stated that his campaign, the Students First coalition, will not actively campaign until Thursday. Which means that his slate was caught unprepared for the first couple of days.

Tactics win campaigns, and lack of preparation loses them.

Gower also believes he can win just by having the support of programs. But what Gower doesn't realize is that ASUO is not just about programs, and programs do not make up the majority of voting students (as shown by last year's Oregon Action Team).

But I'm sure he'll find that out on his own soon enough.

As a side note, the True Blue campaign definitely has the most visibility on campus.

The votes are in

I don't know if anyone noticed, but I started a little poll on the sidebar:

Is ASUO something that should be taken seriously, or is it a giant joke?

I spelled 'seriously' wrong on purpose (you know I'm lying). Of the 8 people who have voted, three are twitter users, four are old school internet users, and one actually thinks that this whole ASUO thing is serious business.

There's still a couple of days for the twitter users to defeat the oldschool webbies. And yes, the 'serious ASUO' crowd still has a chance to win too.

True Blue has a website (and their platform is hillarious)

It's true. The lollerz of the True Blue campaign have launched a website with campaign information. Their platform page is particularly ambitious, which makes it all the more humerus.

Here are some of the things they want to accomplish while in office... but in all likelihood will never be able to:

1. Advocate for open source textbooks and implement a textbook exchange program that saves students money -- Many campaigns have promised this, but most sucessful candidates have either forgotten this campaign promise or have otherwise been unable to deliver. Don't expect anything different from True Blue.
2. Take students to Salem three times every term to advocate for Higher Education issues -- Former president Emily McClain was barely able to do this once a term (or year, I can't remember which), and she was more of a bleeding heart than the True Blue campaigners are. And if this were to be implemented, what sort of support would students receive if the issues they wanted to raise were not 'in line' with True Blue ideology (for example, lowering the I Fee by cutting student services)?
3. Push for the creation of a universal campus cash system applicable in both UO Housing and the EMU Food Services -- They would be fighting the EMU, housing and catering. Good luck with that.
   
4. Create a Congressional Action Center that will provide students with the opportunity to engage in phone calls or letter writing to their Senator or Congressman -- This one is confusing. Can't we as students pick up our own phones or write our own letters to our congress?
   
5. Renovate the EMU by investing in energy efficient heating systems, while simultaneously bringing revenue-generating business to the EMU -- How do they plan to do this? "We will utilize the Oregon Business Energy Tax Credit funds , which are not collected from student fees, in order to update the EMU’s heating and energy sources." Good luck with that. Not to sound like a cynic or anything, but...
   
6. Institutionalize the UO Bike Loan Program to encourage alternative transportation methods to campus and alleviate the strain on campus parking -- ...and increasing student fees.

Visit their website for more of their interesting platform ideas.

I hear Oregon Action Team is going to put up a website too. We'll post their shenanigans as soon as they do.

LOLerz (ASUO Presidential Candidates) refuse spending cap

(Read it here)

Last year's president spent close to $10,000 to become the head of Eugene's biggest circus. The real question is this: Do other ASUO candidates have deep enough pockets to make this year's election as entertaining as last years? 

First Post

This is my first attempt at posting. Kind of want to see what stuff is gonna look like on this blog.

ASUO is so funny. OMFG Lolz!