The way our government works is important. Students should start caring about it now. The way our student government works is also important, and, in light of recent events, we should have started caring long ago.
The IU Student Association elections this past week, and more importantly their fallout this week, should be a disappointment to every student at IU.
This week the incumbent ticket Amplify for IUSA was disqualified for a litany of election code and Student Life and Learning violations during its campaign. Initially, these violations only cost the ticket a little more than 10 percent of its overall vote count, which would have been enough to retain its status as the winner in ?the election.
Then, more information came out. It was discovered ?Amplify for IUSA failed to ?report two major in-kind donations — a failure anyone who has worked in political fundraising should know is a big mistake. When accounting for these donations, Amplify spent well more than the $3,000 spending cap for IUSA campaigns. Oops.
It was this violation that cost Amplify the most. The Election Commission had no choice but to disqualify them earlier this week.
Though the violations themselves are an important issue that should be addressed, the bigger issue is what this whole ordeal says about our student government. Now I can’t say with certainty that the violations Amplify had were done intentionally or maliciously, but the facts surrounding these violations do seem to line up in a suspicious way.
So, at best, it shows an incredible level of incompetence within the ticket that ran on having the most experience, and at worst, it was a scheme by a desperate ticket to essentially rig the election. Either way, students should not be happy about this. And either way, it is indicative of larger, more pressing issues with IUSA as a whole.
IUSA has long been an insular organization. Those on the inside are the ones who get the jobs, win the elections and maintain the largest voice in student government affairs. To a degree, this is understandable.
Most students don’t care; most are too busy to care.
But now we are witnessing the consequences of this insularity. And apparently the consequences are a botched election and high school-esque drama ?surrounding an election.
No doubt this should be embarrassing to everyone involved, but to those who say we shouldn’t care, let me remind you these people are the future of our government. We as a generation will be the ones leading government, business and society very soon. If we can’t control our student government now, in our time of idealism, how can we expect to control Congress, the presidency and state ?government in the future?
The answer is that we can’t. We have to cut the petty, self-centered politics now, and as silly as it might seem to some, that begins with our student government. I hope the IUSA Supreme Court understands that as it hears ?Amplify’s appeal.
thompjak@indiana.edu
