In an interview with The Spectrum, Student Association Treasurer John Martin admitted to an unresolved "gray area" regarding this week's Mandatory Student Activity Fee vote. As such, students and campus publications were misled concerning the percentage of the student body needed to participate in the referendum for it to pass.
That interview came after articles printed in The Spectrum in which Martin was quoted as saying that 10 percent of the student body needed to vote to validate the referendum.
On Thursday afternoon, Martin said that the 10 percent mandate is no longer in effect.
"It was repealed, from what our lawyers told us," Martin said. "It was repealed two years ago along with when they added in the rules about the referendum."
In regards to the 10 percent mandate, Martin said, "We just say that."
Martin later clarified that he continued on to say that the 10 percent mandate was a goal.
In a Sept. 21 interview with Martin, the treasurer told The Spectrum's editorial board that for the fee increase to pass, state law mandates that 10 percent of the undergraduate population must participate in the vote. This information, attributed to Martin, was printed in the Sept. 22 article, "Fighting for $15."
The Spectrum wasn't the only campus publication stating that the 10 percent mandate was absolutely necessary to validate the vote.
In "Voting for Change," an article in the Sept. 15 issue of Visions, Joshua Boston, managing editor of Visions and former managing editor of The Spectrum writes, "What will really happen is that the bare minimum of people will vote, which is 10 percent of the student body as required by policies set forth by the SUNY Board of Trustees..."
Alison Merner, editor in chief of Visions, said she was made aware that the requirement wasn't necessary after publication, but declined to comment further. Boston declined to comment.
Martin told The Spectrum in a later interview Thursday evening that the 10 percent rule was merely a target and a means of encouraging students to vote.
"Even though they changed the law, we still set that [10 percent rule] as a goal. We still want it to show that we had a good sample of the student body agree with us," he said. "As far as we see it, it's a cloudy legal issue. It's a gray area, which is why we were so insistent on getting the 10 percent... We didn't want to take any chances with student interests."
According to SA President Peter Grollitsch, SA still wanted to enforce the 10 percent mandate.
"We're in kind of a gray area right now because apparently, recently, New York state law has changed," Grollitsch said. "If anybody feels like they were misled, I'd tell them to go back to the constitution. That's what we go by, and that's what I go by. Until the constitution changes, that's how we're going to run things around UB."
According to Grollitsch, no changes to the constitution have been made as of this year.
"We haven't had our first assembly or senate meeting," he said. "You can't change the constitution without one of those meetings. We thought the easiest thing to do was to have a 10 percent vote and we got that."
The necessity of the mandate remains somewhat vague. State law does not require a 10 percent voter turnout, as it is illegal for the state to mandate a minimum voter turnout for elections.
The 10 percent requirement was previously a requirement of the SUNY Board of Trustees until it was rescinded in 2004.
The SUNY Board of Trustees' guidelines on mandatory student activity fee defers to SA's constitution on a minimum voter mandate. State law, however, invalidated the constitutional requirement, Martin said.
Section 3 of SA's constitution states that, "A referendum shall be considered valid if and only if adopted by an affirmative vote of a majority of those voting in said general referendum, provided 10 percent (10%) of the regularly enrolled daytime undergraduate student body votes."
Despite constitutional guidelines, according to Martin, only one single vote was actually needed for the vote to be effective.
"This year, even if one person voted, as long as we could prove that we publicized everything correctly and made an effort to promote it, it would still legally pass," he said.
Elissa Katz, a junior business finance major, voted in this week's election. She voted 'yes' for the Student Mandatory Activity Fee increase, but didn't know that it only took one vote for the referendum to pass.
"I'm a little confused as to why it's only one vote," she said. "What's the point of having everyone vote if it just takes one?"
Kyle Eudene, a junior civil engineering major, also voted this week. He voted to keep the Mandatory Student Activity Fee mandatory and for the increase because he thought it was important to have as many clubs as possible on campus.
"I did have somebody telling me that [the vote] needed 1,800 or something like that votes to pass," Eudene said. "I heard rumors that it was going to be iffy whether or not it would pass and I was shocked because I thought more people would be interested in voting."
According to Grollitsch, at least 10 percent of the student body did vote in the election - over 1,900. He said that he could not speculate as to what would have been done if 10 percent of students didn't vote.
"I can't evaluate the situation, I can't say what would have happened," he said. "By no means did we lie to any of the students."
Stephanie Sciandra, Editor in Chief, Dan Mecca, Managing Editor, Tom Halleck, News Editor, Leslie Church, News Editor, Ren LaForme, Asst. News Editor and Jennifer Lombardo, Asst. Copy Editor contributed to this article.
Photo: Courtesy of Laron Fomby
