Election Bill Restrains Race-based Voting
Forward Article to a Friend
Print Article
On March 1, 2006, the Graduate Student Council and the ASSU Undergraduate Senate passed Election Bill 05 to prevent group endorsements from appearing on the election ballot. The new provision particularly affects the Students of Color Coalition (SOCC), a conglomerate of race-based groups that generally endorses the greatest number of candidates in ASSU elections.
ASSU Senators Andrew Barragan and Mima Mohammed attacked the integrity of the bill in a recent Daily opinion piece, arguing that the measure was passed in an “underhanded fashion.” Elections Commissioner Tim Sanders responded in a subsequent Daily column, stressing that the Barragan/Mohammed piece “contain[ed] several factual inaccuracies and dubious claims.” Both Barragan and Mohammed were endorsed by SOCC in last year’s election.
Election Bill 05 shortly preceded an e-mail sent out by SOCC through campus e-mail lists, asking students to “Support Students of Color!” The e-mail encouraged students to sign the petitions of 13 particular candidates. The message also listed the criteria SOCC used for choosing candidates: “commitment to and involvement with student groups supporting people of color; knowledge of the issues faced by students of color on campus; past experience, and passion for improving campus life for students of color and other minorities.”
Interestingly, none of the thirteen SOCC-endorsed candidates in the e-mail were Caucasian. A seemingly implicit criterion for earning the endorsement of SOCC is belonging to a non-white race.
Because of Election Bill 05, however, SOCC’s endorsements will not be listed on the ballot—as in previous years. Before this year, registered Voluntary Student Organizations (VSOs) could officially endorse a candidate and have that endorsement appear next to the candidate’s name on the ballot.
In his opinions piece in The Daily, Sanders detailed the problem with the old system: “To the uninformed voter who looks no further than the ballot to make choices about whom to vote for, a candidate who takes a principled stand against seeking an endorsement looks like he was unable to secure one, while a candidate who appeals to a broad voter base and could attract many endorsements looks like she is beholden to one interest group.”
Although endorsements will no longer appear on the ballot, candidates are still allowed to put endorsements in handbook statements, which are available online to voters. The handbook statements also contain information on the stances candidates take on particular issues. Voters that previously just looked for the “SOCC” label on the ballot will now be forced to directly confront candidate viewpoints when they look through the handbook for endorsements.
The exact role of endorsements—off or on the ballot—is unclear. “My hope is that endorsements are just one factor in a sound decision-making process by educated voters,” said former Elections Commissioner Troy Steinmetz in an e-mail exchange with The Review. “Some people would argue that it becomes a crutch for an uninformed electorate, and sometimes that is the case, but I do believe there is a place in campus politics for groups to support candidates that further their cause.”
Steinmetz acknowledged that he has been “frustrated by the (actual and/or perceived) influence of some endorsements,” but he also stated that he “found no villains or wrongdoers in the [endorsement] procedure.” He listed awareness and organization as two characteristics that can generally enhance the perceived influence of an endorsement.
Organization is certainly one of SOCC’s strengths. The group is an alliance between the Asian American Students Association, the Black Student Union, MEChA de Stanford, the Muslim Student Awareness Network, and the Stanford American Indian Organization. Over 2,000 students are subscribed to one of the five SOCC group e-mail lists.
Under the current regulations, SOCC will continue to endorse minority candidates. However, by making these endorsements less explicit, Election Bill 05 is making race a far less prevalent factor in the voter decision-making process.
