The Election Commission

Every election cycle, ten brave souls come together to form the body known as the Election Commission. This group, charged with upholding election guidelines, is one of the most overworked and under-appreciated groups in student government. Like a football team's kicker, they work hard behind the scenes. Some elections don't require them to do anything more than count ballots. Other elections, how they act and rule can decide who wins and who loses.

As a general rule, the less you hear about the Election Commission, the better the election. Candidates are able to focus on issues and students and not get caught up in rules and regulations. An activist Commission that goes out of its way to shake up an election will doom an election.

With that in mind, I became wary when Gage Rewerts was announced as the new Election Commissioner. "The Maverick" did not earn the nickname by working behind the scenes. It came as no surprise when rumors started to circle later that week that the Commission was considering moving the election back.

The logic for the change is actually sound. The Department of Residence pushed back the dates for re-contracting, making it difficult for students to know which constituency they would be in next year. The problem is the Presidential tickets have been planning this election for months. They have table tents reserved, posters and shirts mentioning the election date, and countless other promotional materials that would need to be changed.

Tonight, the Commission held their first meeting and wisely decided to leave the election date as is. The meeting did provide some interesting foreshadowing for the rest of the election. In particular:

• Rewerts has deemed himself a voting member of the Election Commission. There is some controversy as to whether the Commissioner can vote or not.
• Rewerts has made the group more secretive than in past years. The last part of the meeting was spent in executive session, meaning he kicked out all non-Commission members.
• The new Attorney General was in attendance. The position, designed by Rewerts when he was a Senator, was created to represent NISG to the student government's Supreme Court.

I'll keep you posted as we hear more.