Still no numbers: what is Senate hiding?

Person One: “Chadron State won the basketball game last night.”

Person Two: “What was the score?”

Person One: “Oh, I can’t tell you. If I do, it might hurt the other team’s feelings.”

This scenario is an extreme example of the way we see Senate elections. For years, The Eagle has been asking the executive body of Senate to release the numbers of votes in the Student Senate elections. Year after year, those running for election claim they will be transparent, and they want better working relations with all parts of the college, and year after year, our requests for numbers are denied.

Senators, and those in executive power, have cited the fact that there is nothing forcing them to release the numbers. But our question is and always has been, why refuse to disclose the numbers? What is Senate trying to hide?

Last week, we asked senators in our Man on the Street question, “What are your thoughts on Senate not releasing Senate election numbers in past elections?”

Three senators said forthright they think the numbers should be released; one said he never thought about it, could see the value in releasing, and the value in not; and one senator said, “A loss is a loss so why would it matter by how much.” There are two comments we would like to address.

The first being the senators who mentioned that they think the reason for not releasing the numbers in the past was because it might hurt the other candidate’s feelings.

Bogus.

College is a time to grow, to learn, and to make ourselves better. We are supposed to be pushed and questioned and go through tough situations. We should be asked to act like adults.

“You are adults and we are not going to treat you like any less than adults,” Senate Adviser Susan Schaeffer said to the senators at the Oct. 12, 2015, Senate meeting.

But, Senate is worried about hurting each other’s feelings when they lose an election. Are we the only ones seeing the hypocrisy here?

The second thing we want to address is the thought that a loss is just a loss, so it doesn’t matter. Losing by 200 and losing by 2 is a big difference in all kinds of competitions. See the aforementioned basketball scenario.

Now, it’s recently been pointed out to The Eagle that there is a bylaw in the Student Association constitution that states, “No candidates’ names will be mentioned in the vote-count narrative,” under election procedures, number 29.

The only date on the constitution says that the last time the constitution was updated was March 26, 2015.

Even with this bylaw in place, we still have the same question, what are you hiding? What’s the reason behind this bylaw?

For a bylaw to be changed, it has to be introduced to Senate with three senators’ signatures. Then it will be voted on and can be approved by two-thirds vote.

Three of five senators we asked last week thought that the numbers should be released. You only need three senators to introduce a change to the bylaw. So now we ask the senators to bring the action behind the talk, stand by what you said, and change the bylaw. Stop hiding behind the bylaw, stop worrying about hurting feelings, and start releasing the numbers.

This Senate has one meeting left in this semester; there is still time to make a change and there’s still time for the executive board to step up and actually act transparent. The Eagle asks, for another year, that the Senate election numbers be released to the student body.