As a people, we pride ourselves on being a nation of laws, rather than a nation of men ’ meaning that everybody is required to follow the rule of law regardless of their position in society. However, as a people, we have a fundamental value in the idea of fairness.

Whether it is a fair deal, a fair shake or a fair fight, we don’t believe it is right to kick a person when they are down.

On April 26 and 27 of this year, the Student Association had its annual election to determine who would run a student government with direct control over millions of dollars in student tuition money.

By any standard, the election turn out was dismally low ’ less than 5 percent of the electorate vote was needed to win the presidency and vice-presidency, and in some colleges, less than 100 votes were needed to win a position on the Senate. With the Student Association representing nearly 30,000 students and having a discretionary spending budget rivaling some small municipalities ’ it is fair to ask: What is going on?

The truth of the matter is that the entire election process is to blame, and anyone who examines this election can see it is blatantly unfair and undemocratic. Of the 38 candidates that Students United for Change (SUFC) ran, 37 of them won ’ and almost all of them won by huge amounts.

Both SUFC and the independent candidates were talking about similar issues. Both want tuition to go down, parking to go up, and no one wants to see Chapter 17 revised to put students in double jeopardy for their off campus conduct.

Both ’parties’ were chartered within the last few months, most students are painfully unaware of campus politics, and finally, both parties only had four days to campaign ’ and both came out in full force. So it would seem reasonable to ask why almost every member of SUFC won by a 2 to 1 margin.

One reason would be that SUFC was the only party allowed to be listed on the ballot. The Milwaukee Panther Party was not recognized and every student within the party had to run as an independent candidate because they were unable to get approved as a campus party until after the deadline because members of SUFC cancelled the last approval meeting and rescheduled it after the deadline. Therefore, only SUFC was able to be checked off as a straight-party ticket.

Another reason would be because the ballot itself was confusing. For the category of Senator At Large, the instructions read to check 10 names. Since there were only four independent candidates, many students checked off six members of SUFC as well because they thought they had to vote for 10 candidates to make their ballot count. It should have read to vote for up to 10 candidates.

There was no fair fight here. There was a massacre, and the victims were more than just the independent candidates who had worked hard for a fair shot.

The victims were the students who took the time to vote. The victims were every student who pays tuition at UWM, and the victims were the many good people within SUFC who did not know that certain individuals within their party were hard at work fixing the fight so that they would win.

There are many unanswered questions surrounding this election still. There are questions as to if the election commissioner in charge of the elections had personal and financial ties to members of SUFC.

There are questions as to how secure the ballots were between the time they were cast and the time they were counted. There are questions on the availability of absentee ballots before the election, and there are questions on the competence of the poll workers conducting elections.

However, there is the more fundamental question of fairness. Students as well as the university should refuse to recognize any government that violates the very tenants of the sacred trust we place in the ballot box. The cornerstone to any democracy is the ability to trust that the will of the people is represented through the vote.

Eisold is the campaign manager for the Independent candidates.

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