The Student Association read through unofficial versions of a bill to change rules for write-in candidates in student elections and a resolution to support having Syracuse University permanently house a Pan Am Flight 103 memorial at its meeting Monday night.

During SA’s meeting in Maxwell Auditorium, Parliamentarian James Franco presented the Election and Campaign Reformation Bill. The bill specifically focuses on guidelines for write-in SA candidates when it comes to getting SU students to vote for them.

“It stems from the last election campaign, how it was shown that there were holes in the bylaws that didn’t give guidelines for how write-in candidates should run,” Franco said.

For example, write-in candidates could open up a portable polling station with a computer and have students vote for them there — something that can significantly affect election results, Franco said.

In spring 2015, four groups of students ran as write-in candidates for president and vice president of SA’s 59th session. Current President Aysha Seedat and Vice President Jane Hong were the only official candidates on the ballot. They won 24.1 percent of the student body’s vote.

Write-in candidates will still not have a money cap, Franco said. However, the purpose of the bill is to make the voting process ethically and morally sound. Hong said she supports the bill after seeing how write-in candidates did not have to adhere to the same rules as she and Seedat did.

“Probably the biggest thing that impacted the election was that they could create their own polling stations,” Hong said in a post-meeting interview. “We had to direct people to go to MySlice and vote on their own accord, where as (write-in candidates) were walking around with laptops or iPads and having people vote right there on the spot.”

Recorder Eric Evangelista presented a resolution for SA to support a petition for SU to house Dark Elegy, a memorial composed of 76 sculptures of women that depicts the exact moment when they learned a loved one had been killed in the 1988 terrorist bombing on Pan Am Flight 103.

On July 2, several 2014-15 Remembrance Scholars created a petition to bring Dark Elegy to SU. As of Monday night, more than 500 people signed the petition. Evangelista said the resolution would say SA supports having Dark Elegy on campus, considering that Pan Am 103 is a huge part of SU’s history. It is not clear where the memorial would be located; Evangelista said there had been some discussions of having it in the grass area between Maxwell and Crouse or in between the current memorial of Pan Am 103 and the Hall of Languages.

“It’s a big part of what our campus is and the principles that we stand for,” Seedat said in a post-meeting interview. “Being a Remembrance Scholar is one of the biggest (honors) you can have on this campus, and I think it is really amazing to represent that even further.”

Published on September 14, 2015 at 11:18 pm

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