Editorial: Slate system detrimental to SGB elections, campus

Most students probably remember being cheerily entreated by students on Towers Patio and in front of the Union in the fall to vote for certain slates in the Student Government Board elections. Facebook profile photos were changed to “Vote Forbes and Fifth” or “Vote Steel and Stone” while SGB hopefuls made their rounds, talking to different student groups and hanging up campaign posters.

As pleasant as the campaign supporters and general air of campus involvement were, however, the 2012 election season wasn’t all friendly handshakes and charming smiles. The campaigning process turned less-than-amicable as candidates and campaign supporters filed complaint after complaint against their opponents for violating the SGB Elections Code, which outlines rules of conduct for the campaigning period. Disagreements culminated when, the day before election day last November, the members of several slates called a truce, agreeing to withdraw all infraction complaints filed against their opponents and not file any more.

The issue represented another development in the saga of the SGB elections’ slate system, through which SGB hopefuls can run for their positions alongside one or two other candidates on united platforms called slates. This past election season, the SGB Elections Code was changed to allow slates to endorse one another, leading to the “megaslates” involved in November’s elections truce. Although the change was made to allow the SGB Elections Committee to monitor previously informal alliances between slates, the new system has been frequently debated among SGB members and in campus media this year, as people discuss whether the megaslates put independent and small-slate candidates at a disadvantage.

In early March, SGB Elections Committee Chairman Aaron Gish proposed revisions to the SGB Elections Code, including a ban on megaslates in upcoming elections. According to an April 1 article in The Pitt News, Gish said that flaws in the current system have opened the door to an unrepresentative balance of power in SGB and that elections regulations that more carefully favor diverse Boards would be ideal in the future. Many SGB members — eight of the nine who campaigned as part of megaslates last year — are opposed to Gish’s proposed revisions to the elections code, especially the part that would disallow slates from endorsing one another.

We agree with Gish that megaslates should be disallowed in future SGB elections — but we also think that the slating system, in general, should be banned from Pitt’s student elections. While it’s not impossible for a Board member to be elected after running independently — 2011-2012 Board member Julie Hallinan did not run on a slate — the slate system unnecessarily skews the campaigning process in favor of well-connected students.

Requiring every student to run as an independent candidate would force SGB hopefuls to run purely on their own merits and not potentially benefit from disproportionate amounts of attention gained from their affiliations with other candidates. The increased level of personal commitment and discipline required to run independently would also better ensure that students become active and successful Board members if elected. Finally, eliminating slates would undoubtedly make the campaigning process more welcoming to students who might never have been involved in SGB before, thereby increasing the variety of the student body represented on the Board.

Arguments against banning slates — and especially megaslates — primarily center on the belief held by many current Board members, among others, that if slates were banned, alliances between candidates would just form secretly, resulting in an overall less transparent and less regulable elections process. This argument assumes that Elections Code rules would, to some degree, be either unenforceable or unenforced. But this needn’t be the case. If infractions are dealt with swiftly and decisively by the Elections Committee, illegal collusion between candidates would likely die out fairly quickly.

Another point to consider is the possibility of a referendum (which would be voted on by the student body during the next election cycle) proposing a reduction in the number of candidates for whom student voters can cast their ballot. Currently, students can vote for five Board member candidates and a presidential candidate. Reducing the number of Board members for whom a student can vote to three would eliminate the problem of a large group of student supporters being able to elect a united majority straight to the Board. It’s a start to propose eliminating megaslates, and the current Board should take another look at Gish’s revisions. But to make SGB elections most fair and accessible to all students, the Elections Committee should remove the slate system entirely and reconsider the student voting process as it currently stands.