Session of March 4th, 2021

March 4, 2021

Minutes Recorded by: McKenzie Craycraft, Secretary

Visitors: Steve Conn, Alex Place, Stephen Foster, Kaitryn Johnson, Bailey Frye, Jessica Rogers, Hudson Dillard, Sophie Hill

Call to Order at 11:06 AM

Senator Moyes prays

Roll Called

Approval of Minutes

Minutes approved at 11:12 AM

Officer Reports

Sgt. Edwards: I am working on getting another nametag for senator Smith. Do not steal the name tags. Thank you for following dress code.

PPT LaQuey: This will be a busy session, keep things quick. One of the things we are discussing is the election process. We will deal with this in the long run. We also need to be thinking about how we can make this work over a long period of time. Think long term.

Committee Reports

Senator Anderson: FAC, clubs have their funding now, I emailed Wanda Davis. As for STING, I contacted them, and I have not heard back from them. South field funding, that will be our next priority. We may make a subcommittee to discuss fixing the south fields.

Senator Dittman: The election is done; the polls are still open until Friday. Turn in your ballots. Make sure everything is done. Our next step is to make sure everything is up to date. One bill never got into the website. We want to make sure everything is up to date. Please let me know if you would like to help.

Chairman Willis: Student life committee, we are working on the names of people who helped during the snow week, we are working on printing the isolation network paper. The RDs have agreed they will pass out the papers. We have heard a lot of project and event ideas, one of our committee members can discuss that if we have time

Senator Willis: Student life committee, most of the floors have not replied about the food so you are getting fruit snacks and chips.

Special Business

VP Murphy: We will swear in Smith, Hofer, Rubingh

PPT LaQuey: Rubingh you will go to GoPro, Hofer you will go to student life, Smith PR&R. Please see me after this. Welcome!

VP Murphy: We would normally talk about STING here, but they are not here, we will do that in the future.

Old Business

Senator Avent: Motion to bring a bill previously tabled to the floor. Gratuity Act of Spring 2021

Approved

Senator Avent: I would like to friendly amend this bill change $2,500 and to add in UPD people.

Approved

Senator Bright: How much do we currently have in the budget?

Senator Anderson: Approximately $20,000.

Senator Rubingh: Do you have a list of the student that helped out?

Senator Avent: The student life committee is working on list.

Senator Bright: Motion to bring to a vote.

Approved

Bill Approved

Senator Avent: Motion to assign the organization of this bill to the student life committee.

Approved

New Business

Senator Dittman: Motion to bring Election Ballet Counting Clarification Act of Spring 2021 bill to the floor.

Senator Avent: I believe the bill is being brought up because the current ballots in dynamic forms are supposed to have a ranking order, because that is not how votes are supposed to work this can be addressed. You know you are a governmental body when there is voting fraud.

Sgt. Edwards: Why aren’t we dumping votes and we are adding more overhead to an already complex process?

Senator Dittman: We were thinking about tossing out ballots, but that is unfair for those who have voted incorrectly. That is why we are adding this. Even though they are trying to cheat the system it should work.

VP Murphy: The purpose of adding this allows for people to use discretion. There is a small population who have reached out to ask this to be changed.

Citizen Hill: It is my understanding this problem occurred last year, is anyone concerned that this contingency plan is encouraging fraudulent ballots. It’s been done before. It seems like there is a strong possibility that people are doing this on purpose.

Senator Dittman: This did happen last year, from first place to second place there was a drop of 40 people. Which if you calculate the points it could have changed things. There is an extra 24 from first place to last place. There were 60 people who did not correctly fill out the form. We found this out way later. We could not get the information. We noticed this. The buzz app blew up we did not want that to keep going. This could allow someone to vote for the same person three times. We tried a different method this year. We let it go, we were hoping this year we were able to proof it enough. We want to make sure it is fair for everyone.

VP Murphy: As a point of clarification this is to immediately write this down, this will not be a long-term fix, the entire process needs a lot more work. This is for the immediate to solve what is going on right now. We will need to have a strong overall.

President Turner: Can you please remind me why we are doing a ranking system?

VP Murphy: The rank system is for the fraction points. The rank system is import to how the law is currently written. Whether it is useful or not we could discuss it later.

Dean Steve: This is a small-scale problem, the majority did it correctly. I am not seeing huge amounts of people putting in the same names, we are talking about a few things.

VP Murphy: We have 10 more minutes.

Senator Moyes: Quick question about the wording, does it reflect that this is a temporary measure?

VP Murphy: It is temporary to all of you, we are responsible for fixing the whole system.

Senator Avent: Motion to bring this bill to a vote

Approved

Bill approved

Dean Steve: I have an announcement, I sent out a survey to some students about the Buzz app. It has not been a great environment. I truly believe all over social media it’s not great. I do not think it is the worst place right now. The data that I received back from students was that are you were not proud of the app and how it represents our community. On a scale of 1-5 it averages 1.2. Kristi Morgan has said the parent page is the same way right now. We have been talking about it for a while, I am planning on taking a break from posting on the buzz. The wall will be taken down. I waited until after elections stuff. I wanted peoples petitions to be signed as elections are wrapping up. Our goal is to come up with a more holistic way to say here is what it needs to look like and why. We are taking some time to make that. Later when people are posting stuff, we can have a vison for the buzz. We have pitched this idea to students, and it has been received well. It is not about censorship. This is the school’s platform, and we are response for it, this is not to silence anyone. It is a way to say this space should be cultivated. I wanted to explain that first to senate.

Announcements

None

VP Murphy: Ice cream is a thing on Fridays.

Open Forum

Senator Dittman: With the bill being passed, if you are doing it three times it is probably their first choice, for the other two people running, they each get half a point.

Candidate Hurlbert: I think the instructions that were on the buzz were more than clear. There was not a significant amount of people, I would purpose that we just get rid of them, it would be penalizing people for not participating in an informed manner

Senator Anderson: A point on voting, usually how ranked choice voting works is whoever has the least number of first choice votes is removed and they continue to be disturbed until one person has met the threshold. If we have the time, it is possible to write a computer program to be more reflective of actual write in. It would also solve the issue of having the same name duplicate on the ballot.

VP Murphy: That procedure only takes place if they do not have 25% of the first-place votes.

Senator Avent: We are coming close to a close, this is just for this election, a question for senator Dittman, if you give a half point to each, that gives those people a bigger say than others. My proposal would be to give them 3/8 point it would if they just ranked them differently.

Senator Hofer: I have to agree with candidate Hurlbert, you need to play by the rules, I’ve done dumb stuff, but it is pretty easy to know that you are not doing it correctly.

Citizen Hill: I would like to add, it is responsibility that people have, let all of the student body be informed if they would like, it would be only a hand full of responses, this would be a way to make sure everyone is informed.

Senator Bright: Clarification, there are some people who left the third blank, they may feel they do not want to support a candidate in any way, so they simply leave it blank.

Citizen Hill: I would like to comment that is still not following directions.

VP Murphy: It is a small section.

Senator Avent: As I look at the ballot, I could have messed this up, if I hadn’t paid attention, I motion to adjourn.

Senator Anderson: I call for a division of the house.

Meeting Adjourned at 11:54 AM