A clean(er) IUSA election

For now, it seems Btown has won an IUSA election that won’t have to be decided by the IUSA Supreme Court.

The unofficial vote tally had Btown receiving 3,991 votes, while 3,365 votes were cast for Red-Hot. Turnout represented a little less than one-fifth of the student body.

We are pleased this election seems to have been spared the flagrant violations of last year. However, we have some reservations about the winning ticket; this editorial board cast its vote with Red-Hot.

Btown’s major platform initiatives include an on-campus bike rental program which could be far from convenient, especially measured against its costs. Its “Save $1 Million for IU Students Campaign” focuses on getting professors to turn in course book lists on time so students can net a higher price when selling. The incentives Btown discussed in the debate boiled down to reminder e-mails.

As we said in our endorsement, we were not especially impressed with any of the tickets’ platforms.

Cleaning up IU Web sites makes sense, but Red-Hot’s virtual student union wouldn’t radically change how students connect.

ONE University’s platform was probably the least of its problems. The weakest of the three tickets, ONE University presidential candidate Ben Blair admitted that he had not met with any IU administrators, casting doubt on the feasibility of all his proposals.

The ticket unofficially dropped out on the eve of the election over an e-mail that potentially violated IUSA election codes. Still on the ballot, ONE received 128 votes.
Btown will try to build off the work of previous administrations, all of which came up short, in trying  to achieve a fall break.

Btown’s most valuable proposal is the ticket’s pledge to continue the fight for a school supply tax holiday. They have plans to play politics themselves by enlisting Murray Clark, a Republican state senator and chairman of the GOP for Indiana. But lobbying the state to give up any revenue in the middle of a recession is a tough task.

The current IUSA administration managed to consistently meet a quorum for IUSA Congress meetings. It also kept their budget under control.

However, when it came to campaign promises, one of the only pledges IUSA really met was the meal point rollover. This was only a partial victory, and a lot of credit can go to RHA.

Btown has set the bar high for itself. It probably won’t be the first ticket to discover campaigning is the easy part of IUSA.