Lovelle Harris | Staff Writer
harrisl9@imail.losrios.edu
The Sacramento Superior Court returned a lawsuit to the federal court Aug. 21 that had been filed by the American River College Students for Liberty Campaign concerning the legality of the Los Rios Community College District’s decision to void approximately 4,000 votes in the April student trustee election.
“The lawsuit is actually specifically calling for the district to count the votes and elect the person who received the majority of the votes,” said George Popko, ARC student, trustee candidate, and president of the ARC Students for Liberty Campaign. “In other words, elect the person who won the election democratically.”
According to LRCCD spokesperson Susie Williams, the decision to invalidate the election and appoint Brandon Kleine as trustee was made because of differences in the voting hours on each of the four campuses during the election.
“Prior to invalidating, [our] vice chancellor for education and technology and our associate vice chancellor did a full review,” Williams said. “They went out and asked to talk to student life coordinators, students, students in positions of leadership, and it was pretty unanimous throughout the district folks felt that, yes, it could cause a false election result.”
Following the decision, the ARC Student Association launched its own inquiry into the local campus general election and on April 30 unanimously passed Bill S09-20, calling for an independent audit of the election process to examine the evidence that cited irregularities between the number of ballots cast and the number of voters.
“Unfortunately the effort to resolve this issue with the audit was basically stalled by the administration, so it never actually took place,” Popko said. “Basically they refused to release the funds for the bill.”
The district confirmed that the audit did not occur.
“They wanted to use money for the audit that wasn’t designated for the purpose,” Williams said. “I don’t think it was really clear what the audit was [intended to accomplish]. The issue was that there were more hours of voting time, not the votes themselves.”
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I am a Sac City students who doesn’t appreciate the District treating us like kids who don’t know how to vote. All i know is that they never asked me whether students would prefer having their votes counted as opposed to not counted, and instead have the District appoint someone for us. I didn’t vote for the appointee and we don’t even know who would of gotten elected. That doesn’t seem fair to me.
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I just can’t believe that as much an issue it is to support students in a failing economy; with teachers being fuloughed and the entire budget of the College systems being prepared to be completely exposed to the population, and the administrators are going to oppress the small amount of rights that students have. Stealing first the money provided to education, and the ability to subsidize school fees and then stealing the voice of the student population. I am sure that when these people come up for re-election will not be in office next term. These issues will not easily be forgotten. I was in the audience when the trustees chose to rob the students of Los Rios of their votes and appoint who they wanted to. It was not only morally wrong but it was against the State constitution and education codes and the trustees especially Brice Harris should be imprisoned and it completely reflects how oppressed the conservative party is in education, which skews all data provided by the education system as well. How badly it reflects on the reputation of Los Rios, come and adopt my views of politics or you will not succeed.
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i don’t see why our representatives and leaders are afraid of an audit. i thought they were honest people, now i’m suspicious they’re hiding something.
Don’t let them call you cowards, just let the audit prove your innocence.
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It is appalling to me to witness such debauchery and dishonesty in this once Godly land! I came from the former Soviet Union and am very familiar with these kinds of tactics and it grieves me that it happens right here in the Land of the Free.
Elections are supposed to be conducted in a most honourable manner and maintain the trust of the people/students, otherwise there is no point in even voting! That is Stalinistic and Communistic. The power must rest in the hands of the people/students to elect their own representatives! Is that too much to ask for?
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