Monday, March 16, 1998
Elections Board receives its chairperson
Last year’s investigations chair appointed to ensure smooth
elections
By Dennis Lim
Daily Bruin Contributor
Anthony Brockington, USAC’s choice for election board chair, is
optimistic about running the Elections Board this year.
Brockington, a fourth-year political science student who served
as the investigations chair last year, will now take on the
responsibility of overseeing all the undergraduate election
procedures.
"My responsibilities will be to ensure that elections are fair,
impartial and efficient," Brockington said.
As E-Board chair, Brockington will remain somewhat out of the
fray. His job will be to organize and run the upcoming spring
elections; any charges of election violations made by retired
financial committee chair Robert Rhoan will be handled by the
judicial board.
Brockington sees his new position as an expansion of his
position last year as E-Board investigations chair.
Also, Brockington feels his experience will help him make up for
the late appointment.
"Last year we had a similar situation. The appointments came a
couple weeks later than this year, and we still got everything
done," Brockington said.
Last year, Nina Velasco was appointed E-Board chair in late
March, two weeks before spring quarter. She was appointed after the
previous chair, Edwin Rivera, resigned.
"This year I know the ins and outs of the job, and that’ll help
a lot," Brockington added.
Velasco agreed, saying that Brockington’s experience should help
him a lot.
"He was very committed (last year), and I’m sure he’ll do a good
job this year," she said.
Others, however, question the conditions under which Brockington
was appointed. Dan Ruppel of the Bruin Republicans sees the late
appointment, the lack of publicity and questions on the application
as a deterrent to many who wanted to apply.
Ruppel claims that possible applicants from within the Bruin
Republicans were deterred from applying by the lack of publicity
and last-minute notification.
"The lack of publicity for the position didn’t help us. They put
two ads in the Bruin within a week of the application deadline. We
just found out about it by accident," Ruppel said.
Ruppel also pointed to what he felt were awkward questions asked
in the application. For instance, some of the questions asked on
the application were "What are your favorite movies?" and "What is
your favorite CD?"
"I don’t know what these kind of questions have to do with
choosing an election board chair," Ruppel said.
"I’m not questioning the candidate outright, but I do have to
wonder about the application process," he said.
Addressing these charges, Brockington said that not everyone can
be happy with the way the election process runs.
"You can’t make everyone happy in the election process, but you
have to be able to make the elections work, and work efficiently,
being 100 percent fair all the time," he said.
Brockington also credited his late appointment to a busy student
government, saying USAC was "doing many things for students’
interests."
Currently, the E-Board is not full. Brockington hopes to make
the appointments for remaining positions by Wednesday.
Applications were due last Friday for the positions of
vice-chair, chair of investigations, chair of logistics and
publicity chair.
"As long as you have a good team under you, things should flow
pretty easily. Being the Election-Board chair isn’t a one-person
show," Velasco said.
Looking back at Brockington’s record and performance as chair of
investigations, Velasco approved of the decision to make
Brockington election board chair.
"He’s very objective. He’s one person I could definitely see
upholding the integrity of the election board," Velasco said.
"He can make controversial decisions, but more importantly he
can make fair decisions," she continued.