Fee vote means nothing

If rules are meant to be broken, then guidelines are meant to be ignored. The SA Mandatory Student Activity Fee increase passed on Wednesday with over 10 percent of students voting.

That's good, because if SA did not get the 10 percent, the increase would not have passed and Spring Fest would have been canceled. After all, SA Treasurer John Martin said the "10 percent rule" was a "state law."

And laws are most certainly not meant to be broken.

Good thing the whole thing's not a law at all and Martin had no idea what he was talking about, or just did not bother to tell the truth. Or maybe it's not such a good thing. The "10 percent rule" is a Board of Trustees guideline that can be broken, and three SA officials (Martin, SA President Peter Grollitsch and SA Vice President Ashish Abraham) admitted as much to The Spectrum.

Had less than 1,900 students voted, SA would have simply cited the fact that, in the state of New York, minimums cannot be put on an election. According to Martin, as long as they could prove one student voted at all, the increase would pass.

Remember all of those SA members who badgered fellow students to "Vote Yes!" in the front of the Student Union earlier this week, telling you that they needed your vote and that without 10 percent of the students voting, money would be lost and clubs and events would be canceled?

They did not need your vote, they would not have lost money and chances are if clubs and events were canceled it would be for the same reasons they have been canceled in the past. Who knew about this loophole?

Perhaps only the three people who were ignoring it, while the rest of their minions fought long and hard to achieve it.

To all those commuters who voted down the increase because they are not in any clubs, to all of the Ultimate Frisbee Club players who voted for the increase to keep their program alive, and to all of the "informed" students who just wanted to exercise their rights as Americans, it appears you were uninformed.

At least the Electoral College is based on population. What's SA take into account? Peter Grollitsch?

As long as he knows how to pull a lever.