Wednesday, May 1, 1996
7 percent voter turnout lowest seen in recent yearsBy Ryan
Ozimek
Daily Bruin Contributor
After two uneventful weeks of elections, the results are in.
Danise Kimball has been selected as next year’s internal vice
president of the Graduate Students’ Association (GSA).
Despite a new, electronic election format, less than 7 percent
of registered graduate students voted  the lowest voter
turnout in recent years.
Since the start of the campaign, Kimball chose to join next
year’s external vice president-elect, Grace Chee, on the
Progressive Student Action Slate.
Their slate emphasizes the importance of affirmative action, the
mobilization of the graduate government, better communications
among UCLA’s graduate schools and support of the Students’
Association of Graduate Employees organization (SAGE).
"A lot of our slate focused on infusing GSA with more activism,
Kimball said. "Our slate gave students a different approach than is
currently being taken in GSA."
Kimball defeated first-year graduate student Phu Tranchi who ran
on the Diversity and Outreach slate,by a 15 percent margin.
Although disappointed with the loss, Tranchi still looked
forward to working with the graduate government next year.
"I’m not as much disappointed with my loss," Tranchi said. "I
believe that either of us would have done a good job for GSA."
"But instead I’m especially upset because we won’t see a fee
increase next year to help sponsor GSA community outreach programs
because of the low voter turnout," he said, explaining that because
turnout was less than 10 percent, two referenda on the ballot did
not pass.
The low turnout invalidated a voter-approved fee increase and a
change to the president’s constitutional role in the graduate
government.
"Katherine (Crosswhite, the elections commissioner) has done an
excellent job this year to reach students for the election," said
Loc Nguyen, the current internal vice president. "None of us
expected less than a 10 percent voter turnout."
The additional $2 fee would have been put to support graduate
government sponsored programs such as Melnitz Movies, the
Environmental Coalition and a community fellows program.
This is of grave concern, officials explained, because a loan
contract in the works between the students’ association (ASUCLA)
and the university’s.is threatening to end Melnitz’s program and
the Environmental Coalition.
The terms in the loan restrict the association from giving the
two student governments money  unless it is breaking even
 to go towards their Student Interaction Funds.
If the loan is approved, the Graduate Students’ Association will
not receive any of the more than $30,000 it received last year to
support Melnitz Movies and other student programs.
"By the beginning of the next fiscal year for the students’
association, Melnitz Movies and the Environmental Coalition will be
wiped out," Nguyen said.
Although the undergraduate student government successfully
increased its fees by $5 just three years ago, the graduate
association has been unable to raise fees as little as $2 since
1982.
Jerry Mann, the students’ association’s interim director of
student support services, saw the graduate government reaching an
important fiscal crossroad.
"If things don’t begin to change, GSA may very well begin to
wither away within the next four to five years," Mann said.
The two non-constitutional measures that passed focused on the
the graduate government’s affirmative action policies.
More than half the student voters (55 percent) agreed with the
graduate government’s disapproval of the University of California
regents’ decision to reverse affirmative action policies in hiring
and admissions. About 57 percent approved of the graduate
government and the students’ association’s use of affirmative
action.
"The close vote on the two affirmative action referendums show
that the subject isn’t as one-sided as we once thought," Nguyen
said.
Kimball begins her term of office by the end of May. She will be
joined on next year’s council with graduate President-elect
Christopher Tymchuk and Chee, the graduate external vice
president-elect, who both ran unopposed.
FRED HE/Daily Bruin
Danise Kimball