Though supporters of the senate proposal have been collecting
signatures for more than a month, they have yet to get support from
the required 15 percent of the undergraduate student population to
hold a special election.
The petition, which is only the first step to changing the
structure of undergraduate student government, will continue to be
circulated even after the 15 percent threshold is reached.
Undergraduate Students Association Council General
Representative Brian Neesby, who is heading the special election
campaign, and other senate supporters want the special election to
be held prior to the spring general election so that the senate
structure will be implemented for next year’s incoming
officers, Neesby said.
However, the senate petition would have had to be presented to
the Elections Board by seventh week to ensure that the special
election would be held this quarter, said Anat Herzog,
Undergraduate Students Association Elections Board chairwoman.
Elections are typically held between the sixth and seventh weeks
of spring quarter, though the campaign process begins several weeks
earlier, leaving little time for senate supporters to force a
special election before then.
The senate structure, first proposed last year, would convert
USAC from a council of 13 voting members to a structure consisting
of 20 voting legislative senators, five voting executive positions
and five nonvoting commissioners.
Earlier this quarter, USAC rejected the senate proposal as a
constitutional change.
The special election would call for the undergraduate student
population to vote in support of or against adopting the senate
proposal, and requires two-thirds of voting students to support the
measure for it to take effect.
Signature collection for the special election petition began
Jan. 25. The petition does not ask for student support of the
senate structure, but rather support to hold a special election for
students to vote whether to adopt the senate structure.
Student signatures have been collected outside of residential
restaurants, during classes with permission from professors, and
from several student groups.
Signature collection has been focused on the Hill and in
classrooms because there is more access to a greater number of
students, Neesby said.
Some of the student groups that signatures have been solicited
from include Bruin Republicans, Bruin Democrats and the Jewish
Student Union, said Financial Supports Commissioner Ryan
Smeets.
The Greek community has also been a focus for signature
collection because of the large number of students involved in
these organizations, Neesby said.
A majority of the Greek community endorsed the Bruins United
slate during last spring’s USAC elections, the slate with
which Neesby campaigned.
The senate proposal was presented and explained to the UCLA
Panhellenic Council, which includes 11 sororities, and the
Interfraternity Council, which includes 19 fraternities.
Petition forms were taken by sororities and signatures collected
on an individual chapter basis, said Panhellenic President Rachel
Iker.
“The petition was given as an option to individual
chapters,” Iker said. “Panhellenic has not taken an
official stance on the senate proposal.”
If enough signatures are collected, the petition must be
presented to the Elections Board, which oversees all student
elections and campaigns.
The board has the responsibility of verifying that each
signature belongs to a registered undergraduate student of UCLA by
confirming student names and student identification numbers, which
students supply when signing the petition, Herzog said.
The required 15 percent of undergraduate signatures must be
verified and a special election must be held within 15 days of the
presentation of the petition, according to the Undergraduate
Students Association Elections Code, Herzog said.
“We are trying to get extra signatures, above the required
15 percent, to avoid a potential disqualification of the petition.
We want to take each signature into account,” Neesby
said.
Similar special election efforts were undertaken last year, but
the petition failed to collect 4,000 verifiable student signatures.
Hundreds of signatures on last year’s petition could not be
verified because they were illegible or students did not use their
legal names.