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Ross Wolland replaced Nyssa Gatcombe as vice president of University of Maine Student Government at a General Student Senate meeting on Sept. 7.
Gatcombe announced her resignation due to a conflict with an on-campus job at the Aug. 31 meeting. Wolland, who held the position before Gatcombe, expressed his confidence about the future of the senate.
“I’m excited for the upcoming elections,” Wolland said. “I want to see the senate fill up.”
Others at the meeting were less optimistic about the rapidly approaching election season. Former Sen. Ryan Gavin, a second-year political science student, drew issue with contradictions he found in the Fair Elections Practices Commission’s guidelines for elections, speaking during the General Good and Welfare portion of the meeting to suggest reforms in the document’s language.
Gavin, who resigned from the General Student Senate last April following what he believed to be an ongoing atmosphere of unprofessionalism within the body, expressed dissatisfaction with the ambiguity and contradictory nature of the written procedures.
“The dates aren’t clear,” Gavin said. “I want to run for vice president this year, and I don’t know when to start campaigning.”
The FEPC guidelines regulate the annual GSS election process. According to Gavin, the election guidelines are “confusing and inaccessible.”
Gavin is not the only one who has noticed inconsistencies in the guidelines. Sen. Nate Wildes said Wednesday that the errors are glaring and obvious; however, he is more optimistic than Gavin about the potential for positive changes.
“It doesn’t take a genius to read through the FEPC guidelines and realize they need work,” Wildes said, adding, “Nobody at the University of Maine wants an illegitimate election.”
According to Gavin, the tangle of the FEPC guidelines extends far past inconveniences for possible candidates. As an elected body, the members of Student Government Inc. are given their power through a popular vote. When that voting process breaks down, the validity of the body comes into question, he said.
“It’s so screwed up. My point was that the bedrock of legitimacy for student government is a fair and free election cycle,” Gavin said.
Despite the numerous discrepancies in the document, Wolland feels confident in the way Student Government is run.
“We have a lot of documents in this organization. They’re not all perfect, but everything we do around here is legitimate.”
This is not the first incident in which Gavin has questioned the legitimacy of GSS elections. Last November, students were given the choice to vote for student government president either on FirstClass or on a paper ballot. Gavin acted as a witness to the ballot counting procedure during that election. He said some paper ballots were thrown out without being opened because student identification was not asked for when the ballots were cast, as is required by the elections guidelines.
“There were 12 [extra] ballots. They were shredded – we don’t know who they were for,” Gavin said. “I think a lot of those paper ballots were for Zach [Jackman]. Assuming there was a majority, Zach could have tied [Brian Harris], could have lost by 10 or won by 10. But you shouldn’t have to ask those questions.”
Jackman, a fourth-year political science student now running for a seat in the Maine State House of Representatives, lost last year’s GSS election by only several votes.
“It’s really kind of disheartening to see [GSS] spend a year on this when they could just fix the problem,” Gavin said.
For now, the election practices will be carried out as they have in the past while a senate committee considers changes to the guidelines.
“For now we’re going to run them the same way,” said Sen. President Bryan Harris.
In other GSS news, the senate allocated $1,700 to Club Baseball — $1000 to help cover dues and $700 for the purchase of two new aluminum bats. Wildes and Sen. Ben Goodman briefly questioned the club’s planned equipment purchases before the senate unanimously voted in favor of the funding request.
Vice President of the Faculty Senate Michael Grillo attended the meeting, urging for an increase in the quality of communication between the campus senate bodies.
“We have a student senate, a faculty senate, and a graduate senate,” Grillo said, adding, “it’d be nice if we talked to each other.”
Robert Stigile contributed to this report.
