ELECTION REGULATIONS DISCUSSED

During the Friday, May 4 meeting of the Student Government (SG) senate, Director of Services Robert Watson proposed several election-related amendments for inclusion in the SG bylaws.

The revisions allow unofficial campaigning to begin the first day of spring quarter, but prohibit candidates from using official RIT social media for promotion during this period. They also restrict candidates from seeking faculty, staff or administrator endorsement.

Under the amendments, the SG Election Committee would reserve the right to discount votes cast for non-RIT students, including offensive votes. While Watson stated many offensive votes are not displayed on the official results page, the elections committee is seeking a standardized methodology for eliminating write-in names that are clearly vulgar attempts at humor, intolerance or disrespect. One proposed definition involved determining whether votes constitute a violation of RIT’s student conduct code with respect to racism, hate speech or otherwise offensive language.

Watson also reiterated that students reserve the right to abstain by selecting a “neither candidate” button during the election.

PEOPLESOFT SECURITY INCREASED

Social security numbers of students will no longer appear on GeneSIS due to the security and privacy issues accompanying the transparency of that information.