The original version of this article contained an error and has been changed. See the bottom of the article for more information.
The undergraduate student government unanimously voted Tuesday to set spending caps for candidates, recognize the existence of slates and mandate the disclosure of campaign funding sources in the spring election.
The changes to the Undergraduate Students Association Council Election Code addressed several controversies that arose in the past because of unclear or nonexistent code. Election Board Chair Shagun Kabra said he used University of California Berkeley’s student government’s Election Code as an example when drafting the language for the amendments.
Candidates will now have to adhere to mandatory spending caps of $800 to $950 if they are executive candidates and $650 to $800 if they are nonexecutive candidates. The Election Board chair will choose a cap within each of these ranges annually. Before, spending limits were voluntary, and few candidates agreed to follow them each year.
The exact spending limit for this year’s election is not yet set.
The code also establishes a new type of spending specific to slates. In addition to spending per candidate, slates will be able to spend $200 more for each candidate they run, with a maximum of $2,000 spent per slate. Independent candidates will be allowed to spend an additional $400 on their campaigns. The campaign spending limits will be subject to reevaluation every three years, following an amendment from the USAC Constitutional Review Committee.
Candidates will also have to report the sources of donations that are more than $20 from now on, and a newly established finance committee on the Election Board will be tasked with overseeing candidate and slate finances.
Another addition includes the official recognition of slates on the ballot, with the code outlining the procedure for registering and participating in the election as a slate. Each candidate will be identified by his or her slate on the ballot and will be labeled as independent if not running with a slate.
Slates have until March 9 to file for official recognition to run candidates in the election.
The new code instituted several small changes, such as barring candidates from campaigning in university apartments and any university-owned property. The changes also detail the vote-counting procedure and roles for each member of the Election Board, and specify the duration of voting, which must span 72 hours.
At the meeting Tuesday, councilmembers deliberated about the timing of voting, discussing which days of the week the election should start and end before approving the election calendar, which was separate from the Election Code.
Voting will begin on April 27 at 2 p.m. and end on May 1 at 3 p.m.
Correction: The new code bars campaigning in any university-owned property, including university apartments. The code does not bar campaigning on Greek row.