The 47th Legislature of the Student Government Association (SGA) voted to restructure the elections code as recommended by the Elections Reform Task Force and enacted a number of constitutional amendments to the SGA code during its last two legislative sessions.
The chair of the task force, College senior Matthew Pesce, presented the bill to the legislature and outlined the changes it makes to the elections code.
Pesce identified challenges to elections and the redundancy of having multiple election boards as reasons for the changes.
To rectify the first problem, the bill repeals the election codes and boards for all of the divisional councils and unifies them under one election code and board, which Pesce will lead. The unified board will include representatives from each subsidiary body. This includes the Graduate School SGA, College Council, the Goizueta Business School and the School of Law.
Specifically, the new code outlines the qualifications for candidacy and what methods of campaigning candidates are not permitted to use rather than describing what they are allowed to do, Pesce said.
According to the bill, the new code permits campaigning 10 days prior to Election Day and prohibits campaigning starting at 11:59 p.m. the night before.
The code no longer restricts what candidates may post on social media but instead mandates that all vote solicitation materials be submitted to the board for approval prior to dissemination.
It also prohibits candidates from "randomly call[ing] students to solicit votes" and from encouraging students to vote by providing them with a laptop.
Any challenges to an election result must be submitted within 48 hours of the election and will be subject to review by the SGA Board of Elections.
In addition to these stipulations, Pesce said the new code allows divisional councils autonomy because they may submit their own rules that would serve as supplements to the code.
Because the divisional councils will be appointing those representing them on the board, some SGA members raised concerns that the same people running for office are appointing the board that reviews them.
Pesce responded that he did not think this was a concern because it is how elections operate in the status quo.
"This is a product of a whole bunch of delicate compromises," Pesce said.
The bill passed 19-0-1. In addition to unifying the elections code, the legislature also voted to temporarily create the Office of the Associate Vice President.
The purpose of the position, according to SGA Vice President for Communications and College sophomore Jon Darby, is to train the associate vice president to take over the position of vice president for communications.
The addition of this office requires a referendum of the student population in order to pass, so the bill temporarily establishes the office until a referendum is held to amend the constitution officially.
That bill passed on a 24-0-4 decision, and legislators voted unanimously to appoint College sophomore Yuxuan Chen to the newly created position.
The legislature also passed a number of constitutional amendments to the SGA code that enumerate the powers of the executive and legislative branches.
The amendments also update the bylaws to reflect practice, according to SGA Speaker of the House and College sophomore Kimberly Varadi.
The amendments add the power to choose internal officers to the legislature and the power to set the Student Activities Fee as determined by the Board of Trustees.
These amendments also limit the executive branch to solely University-wide positions, meaning the SGA Chief of Staff is no longer considered a part of the executive branch.
The responsibilities of the newly created Office of Secretary were also codified.
The bill also requires that the University Senate approve all constitutional amendments.
The Legislature tabled the bill after the 17th legislative session because some members of SGA said they wanted time to review the old document and compare it to the amendments.
However, at the 18th legislative session the bills to amend the constitutions were passed unanimously by the legislature.
The legislature also voted to approve the Student Locker Transfer Act, which transfers control of the lockers in Eagles' Landing from the President and Executive Branch to the Legislature.
Finally, SGA also passed a bill that establishes that all standing rules in the bylaws that apply to the Legislature are independent from the President and no longer require his or her approval.
That bill also passed unanimously.
– By Rupsha Basu
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