SGA proposes amendments to expand voting rights

The UHCL Student Government Association (SGA) recently proposed new amendments to the SGA Constitution that would give the student body more rights in the voting process.

The SGA’s four primary purposes are: to advocate for and speak on behalf of the student body at large; provide input to university administration on student and organizational issues; elect/appoint students to university committees; allocate funds to student organizations.

The SGA will hold a meeting Sep. 27 where the student organization representatives will vote on the new amendments.

Currently, only student organization representatives are allowed to vote in SGA elections and for the allocation of university funds. If the amendments pass, all students will be able to vote in future elections.

“That’s the way we run as a country,” said SGA President A.J. Johnson. “Everyone gets a vote and students here on campus need to be represented fairly through their student body, and every student’s vote will count just the same as a student org. representative vote.”

The amendment will not, however, give all students a vote on the allocation of university funds.

“The reason for this is because student organization representatives have no incentive to show up to SGA meetings besides voting on issues in SGA,” Johnson said. “If regular students had that power as well, then no student would strive to be a student organization representative.”

In addition to extending election voting rights to the entire student body, the SGA has proposed other amendments to encourage more student participation in elections.

These additional amendments include providing voter anonymity for students participating in SGA proceedings as well as preventing any changes to be made to the SGA Constitution during the summer semester, during which much of the student body is not represented.

Vice President Diveanne Martinez said that the weekly meeting times on Tuesdays at 11:30 a.m. in the SSCB lecture hall would still be the only time students would be able to vote, should the voting amendments pass. This would give students one hour on Tuesday afternoon meetings to show up to cast their vote.

“I’m really glad that we will finally have a chance to vote in elections,” said accounting major Muhammed Khan. “But many students, like myself, can’t attend the Tuesday afternoon meetings because we have class or work. I wish they had a longer window for us to vote. That way more people would be able to do it.”

The passing of the proposed amendments would be the first change in the UHCL SGA Constitution since Oct. 28, 2013. UHCL is currently the only university in the University of Houston System that does not allow the entire student body to vote.

In order for an amendment to pass, at least two-thirds of the student organization representatives must vote in favor of the amendment.

“If the voting amendment is passed, we will put out flyers and have an information table letting students know that they can come out and vote for their next student body council,” Johnson said. “We would definitely make them aware of their new right to vote.”

The amendments can be proposed at any time, and there is no limit to the amount of times a certain amendment can be brought up, but they must receive support from two-thirds of the student organization representatives in order to pass.

“The student organization representatives are the only students that can vote for the next SGA Executive Council, so they may want to retain that power and manipulation over the Executive Council and student body,” Johnson said.

Johnson also explained that although the selected student organization representatives are very involved on campus, they cannot possibly experience all of the issues relevant to students on campus because of the large ratio of students to student organization representatives.

For more information about SGA, visit their website at http://prtl.uhcl.edu/student-life/get-involved/student-government-association.

 

FROM THE SGA PRESIDENT

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VIDEO: Proposed SGA Amendments

Created by: Kate Gaddis

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