A new elections commissioner was barely approved after much controversy during Tuesday night’s UF Student Senate meeting.
Two weeks ago, three students were appointed election commissioners. One of them, Jessica Kramer, resigned.
The election commission is the first to hear about election complaints. From there, the group rules on a resolution.
Normally, an election commissioner is selected by the UF Student Body president, UF Student Senate president and UF Supreme Court chief justice then approved by the Senate. Because Kramer resigned, a new seat had to be filled before the Spring 2015 elections. The UF Supreme Court unanimously nominated Austin Sherman for the position, to be approved by the Senate.
Sen. Preston Jones objected and brought to light Sherman’s heavy involvement with the Swamp Party as majority leader two years ago, as well as multiple high-level roles in Student Senate as a member of Swamp.
Sherman served as chair of the judiciary committee from June 2013 to May 2014 and as budget and appropriations committee vice chair for the Spring 2013 semester.
According to the 700 election codes, a student must not have a party affiliation for an election cycle, which is one semester. Sherman was a student senator in Spring 2014, according to Alligator archives.
Sherman, a first-year law student at the UF Levin College of Law, was inactive for Fall 2014, so he qualifies. But senators still raised concerns.
Sen. Stephanie Wong said electing Sherman wouldn’t be fair to students.
“To place anyone associated with a political party violates the integrity and the neutrality of the elections,” she said.
Sen. Leah Miller, allocations chairwoman, assured senators that because of Sherman’s experience as a law student and time away from the Senate, he was a qualified candidate.
“If he was not involved in the previous semester then he qualifies,” she said. “He was chosen with a group that is trusted.”
Sen. Anthony Sorrentino, chairman of the rules and and ethics committee, weighed in as well.
“I can promise everybody in these chambers that there’s not a person who cares more about the accuracy of the codes,” said Sorrentino. “There’s no bigger stickler for the rules than Austin Sherman.”
After several rounds of pro and con, a divided Senate voted.
Sherman needed two-thirds of votes to be approved. He was three votes short from failing with 55 senators approving and 24 dissenting.
“People change,” Sherman told Senate. “I promise you I will follow the codes.”
[A version of this story ran on page 1 on 2/4/2015 under the headline “Student Senate selects new elections commissioner"]
Correction: The original story named the election commissioner who resigned as Christel Harlacher, but the actual election commissioner was Jessica Kramer. The error was based on incorrect information from UF Senate President Joseph Michaels.
