BEC simplifies handbook for Senate election

The new version contains time limits for removing campaign items

By Amanda Wysocki and Megan Stroup

Published Jan. 30, 2009

The Missouri Students Association Senate passed changes to the Board of Elections Commissioners senate election handbook, but is still looking for new BEC members for the next election starting Feb. 9.

The MSA Operations Committee drafted proposed changes to the handbook approved by the Senate on Wednesday night, Operations Committee Chairwoman Amanda Shelton said.

Shelton's primary goal in reworking the BEC handbook was to simplify the guidelines for candidates.

"In the last two elections, there have been overcomplicated rules that caused an inordinate amount of work for the BEC," Shelton said. "It just confused the slates and the voters."

Shelton said she wants to stay true to the spirit of the previous Senate handbook.

"We are keeping the principles of the current version," Shelton said. "We just are not going after all the minutiae."

In the new handbook, specific requirements on the amount of posters, handbills and other campaign items have been removed. An amendment stating that complaints must be filed within 24 hours of the incident was added to the handbook for senate elections.

"We're doing what we can to make sure slates are aware of grievances and when they've been filed against them," Senate Speaker Jonathan Mays said of one of his major proposed changes to the handbook.

The handbook passed through full Senate with two senators abstaining. The only controversial part of the new rules was an amendment to ban Senate candidates from campaigning door-to-door in apartment complexes and other off-campus housing.

MSA President Jordan Paul spoke against that section of the bylaws.

"It limits the candidates' abilities to reach out to voters," Paul said.

Senator Phyllis Williams, however, felt this particular section was justified for Senate elections. She based this on the grounds that because senators are elected to represent a particular school, there is no way to tell to which school students living off campus belong.

"Our job is to outreach to students," Williams said. "We must also respect students' space and privacy. I am definitely open to conversing about this for presidential elections, but I feel it is inappropriate for Senate elections."

Ultimately, MSA settled on an amendment stating that candidates must respect any solicitation policies of apartment complexes.

In addition to legislative changes, new students will run the BEC next semester. All members of the previous board resigned at the end of the last semester and over winter break.

Each head of an MSA branch -- Mays for the legislative, Paul for the executive and Student Court Chief Justice Jonathan Sandhu for the judicial -- will appoint a new member this semester and those three students will run the BEC, Paul explained.

On Tuesday, the operations committee approved Senator Dan Kelley as a member of the BEC. Kelley, who is former MSA President Jim Kelley's brother, was Paul's pick to join the commission.

"I wanted to do this because I got tired of how bad a job was done in previous elections," Dan Kelley said during the committee meeting.

The other two appointees to the BEC will be decided at a later date within the next week.

Williams is being considered for the legislative appointment but Sandhu raised concerns about her previous commitment level when working with her in Judicial Peer Advisory Council. Her appointment will be reconsidered next week in Operations Committee. Williams is the former Academic Affairs Committee chairwoman, a position she left to run for president last semester.

Sandhu said he plans on developing a list of students who he thinks would be successful in the BEC, and then calling former BEC Chairman and judicial appointee Justin Mohn to get his opinion. Mohn is a former member of The Maneater staff. Sandhu will then call the students on his list to gauge their interest in the position.