USG adopts new election code

The Undergraduate Student Government senate held an emergency session on Thursday evening to approve an alternative election code for the next election cycle. The senate called the urgent session to convene after president Hannah Woodworth vetoed an original version of the election code over a change in regulations regarding USG member participation in future campaign teams. 

For the past 15 years, USG has not allowed members who hold office hours to be an official part of a USG candidate’s campaign team. In the original proposed 2022-2023 Election Code, senators included a passage that would allow “A maximum of two USG officers” to be on the same election team. 

In her statement on her veto of the original Election Code, Woodworth expressed her disapproval of the clause. 

“I fear that this change will place candidates who are not in USG at a disadvantage during the election, and create an inequitable campaign environment,” she wrote. “Given feedback we received during the election last year, indicating that USG officers are already at an inherent advantage in the election process, this change will only exacerbate the problem.”

In order to pass a new election code in time, the senate convened in an emergency session immediately preceding a meeting of USG’s legislative branch. During the session, senators debated on approving an alternate code that replaced the vetoed language with a new clause that says “no current USG Officer who holds any office hours may serve as a member of any candidate’s campaign team.” 

Debate on whether to approve the new election code lasted nearly 30 minutes of the Thursday meeting, running into the legislative branch’s meeting time. 

Senator Aidan Feighery, who opposed the president’s veto, argued that having a USG member on a campaign for someone who is currently in USG would indeed be advantageous, but not so unfairly that it would amount to conflict; USG should allow the campaigns of non-USG members to access “that institutional knowledge” by permitting teams to have a member of USG on their staff. 

Some senators proposed letting only those who do not receive stipends for their work with USG become members of campaigns, a notion which was put forward as an amendment to the new election code by senator Maria Barun.

When the senate moved into voting procedure, members moved to vote by blind ballot, which meant that all votes were cast anonymously. This motion was met with disapproval from assembly members and some senators in the meeting room, objecting that any senator planning to run in the upcoming 2022-2023 election should have recused themselves from the vote entirely. No senator elected to do so. 

The senate first voted on the amendment to the alternate Election Code, which failed, and then voted on the alternate code without the amendment attached, which also failed. After informally debating for an additional few minutes, the senate voted in favor of the alternate code, in line with the president’s original comments on election fairness.

In an interview with the Daily Trojan, Woodworth defended her reason to veto the original Election Code, restating her disapproval of the proposal to allow USG members to be part of election campaigns. 

“We needed to maintain a precedent to ensure that we have accessible and equitable elections,” she said. “By allowing USG members to serve on elections, it will further empower USC candidates who are on the tickets to have [an] unfair advantage and it will inherently exploit people who are outside of the organization.” 

While Woodworth said she was happy that the senate was eventually able to pass her preferred election code, she expressed disappointment that it had taken so long to do so.

“I wish that the senators had this discussion during the senate meeting when it was intended on Tuesday and that it didn’t have to be an emergency senate meeting,” she said. “I think that is inconvenient and unfair.”