Photo Courtesy of Krysten Hood
The Florida A&M University 54th Student Senate met on Monday to revise the Internal Rules of Procedures (IROP). The meeting shifted due to breaking news regarding the Supreme Court and the Electoral Commission.
Amidst the breaking news fresh from the EC’s daily campaign debrief, the Senate briefly began to review the IROP, which is the governing document by which the Senate operates. Every year, the Senate discusses and votes to revise these documents as they see fit.
The Executive Branch highlighted the May Williams Administration’s new initiative, “Recognize a Rattler,” which will allow students to nominate their fellow students who are making an impact on campus and in the community. One rattler will be recognized per month, and students can be nominated through the QR code available via Instagram.
During the Judicial Branch’s report, Chief Justice Jaylen Butler shared that five appeals were made by fall election candidates who were disqualified for various infractions.
“There has been a lack of communication and discrepancies as both my court and E&A Committee are supposed to be getting all notifications of disqualifications within 24 hours–the notes from E&A Committee state that five students are disqualified, yet I was only presented with four disqualification memos on Sunday,” Chief Justice said. “There needs to be something set in [stone] so that if one party does not receive the right information, something needs to happen because how are you supposed to go to court and the court doesn’t know?”
It was also reported that the Electoral Commission assessed two of the candidates 3,010 points and 2,800 points., Being that 50 points is the threshold, this results in disqualification. Justice Butler noted that in his four years in SGA, he has never witnessed anyone reach over 150 points during a campaign.
Butler explained that one student received points for having 100 bags of alleged unapproved chips and candy, which were multiplied by the 30-point penalty. Two other candidates were assessed points for having handcuffs on their campaign table, an alleged unapproved bowl, and caution tape to accent their campaign theme.
Two of the other candidates’ infractions were related to the GPA requirement, which was against the documents that candidates are held to, which state that freshman candidates have until the end of their first term to achieve the desired GPA. All five appeals were overturned and deemed unconstitutional according to the SGA constitution and the Electoral Commission’s point system.
One of these candidates chose to withdraw from their race.
Chief Justice Butler issued a temporary restraining order on Tuesday to halt all ballot counting for the current election. The concerns from the student body that led to this ruling include “inconsistent ballots showing varying candidates for different students, ballots not opening at the same time for all students, and the voting period not meeting the required 10-hour minimum stipulated within the SGA Constitution.”
The Electoral Commission followed up with a statement on Tuesday, explaining that they were aware of the technical issues experienced by students. The statement highlighted that “voting is contingent on how many credit hours are reflected on a student’s transcript.” This means first-year/first-time-in-college students who entered the fall semester with more than 30+ credits received a ballot based on their classification by credits, not by their time in college.
At the conclusion of the meeting, the senators decided to wait until the newly elected freshman senators entered the Senate to review the IROP with them.
Events outlined for SGA week will include the SGA Open House on Monday, October 21st, from 5-6:30 p.m., Pie a Student Leader on Tuesday, October 22nd, from 3-5 p.m. and the Inauguration of our executive SGA members on Friday, October 25th, at 5 p.m.
The Senate will meet again on Monday at 7 p.m.