Grammer resigns; election reviewed

By Jenna Youngs

Published April 25, 2008

The same week members of the MSA Senate, Student Court and Board of Elections Commissioners met to create a plan to address election issues, BEC Chairman Geoffrey Grammer submitted a letter of resignation to Senate Speaker Jonathan Mays.

According to Missouri Students Association bylaws, BEC terms end May 15.

In the letter, which he released to The Maneater on Tuesday but did not give to Mays until Thursday, he stated he enjoyed working on the BEC.

“Working for Board of Elections Commissioners has been a wonderful experience,” he said in the letter. “I could not ask for a better group of colleagues. I have grown in many ways here and will always treasure the opportunities provided for me by Board of Elections Commissioners.”

Grammer said he decided to resign to clear his schedule for other activities.

“Now that the election is over with, I have other things to do than trying to figure out what to do for next year’s election,” he said.

At Tuesday night’s MSA Senate Operations Committee meeting, BEC Vice Chairmen Ian Krause and Justin Mohn met with former Student Court Chief Justice Drew Webber, new Chief Justice Jonathan Sandhu and members of the Operations Committee to discuss ideas to remedy problems that arose during the Senate election. Mohn previously worked for The Maneater.

During the meeting, the group discussed ideas for bylaw revisions including clarifying the BEC’s duties, what to do if a revote is necessary, how to handle mandatory training sessions for candidates and how to recruit candidates.

Operations Committee Chairman Corey Gibson said some senators, including Mays, had felt the BEC should have done the bulk of recruiting potential candidates instead of senators taking on the responsibility. Mohn said BEC executives didn’t know they were expected to recruit and that duty should be outlined in writing for future BEC members.

Those in attendance also discussed how much power the BEC should have to investigate possible violations of election rules, and to whom the BEC should report.

Gibson said he thinks BEC executives should only investigate potential violations if they receive a formal complaint. He said allowing the BEC to seek out violations rather than receiving complaints first could lead to “headhunting” by the BEC. He cited issues from the 2006 MSA presidential election in which candidates Sameera Ali and Kelley Robinson were kicked out of the election for violations about which the BEC never received a formal complaint. Gibson also ran for president that year but lost to Rachel Anderson.

Those at the meeting decided to clarify that the BEC should receive a formal complaint before beginning an investigation. But if a member of the BEC notices a potential violation that member could file a complaint that the other executive members would investigate.

Gibson is drafting bylaw-revising legislation about the issues discussed and will submit them for Senate’s consideration.