Just a day before election results were announced, this publication commended the Associated Students of the University of Arizona. The candidates were something seemingly new and, dare I say, “”diverse.”” It seemed as though ASUA may have been turning the corner and was expanding its representative abilities. Of course, we have since seen the outcomes of the elections and the Daily Wildcat retracted its statement of brighter futures in another editorial.  

Both presidential candidates were disqualified, ASUA won’t say why, the candidates wouldn’t say why and there was just something expected about the outcomes. This election, which had the potential to be so very different, turned out just as we feared. The general rule of “”he who has the most friends gets the most votes”” held true yet again.

James Allen destroyed Daniel Hernandez in the presidential vote, and candidates with unique backgrounds were stomped by platforms that insist upon creating systems and programs that we already have.

Elections Commissioner Michael Colletti has announced that, due to the disqualification of both presidential candidates, a special election could be held unless Allen successfully appeals violations. A special election would open the playing field up to any interested UA students. Unfortunately, that includes the two candidates who just got disqualified. In other words, Allen will run against Hernandez, and maybe some student will be crazy enough to think that in one week’s time of a special election, he/she can muster up the support to beat a candidate with national recognition and another who is a member of Greek Life (which, as has been mentioned several times, dominates student government).

What this all means is that we get another election, another week full of being pestered by people we don’t know and more listening to cries of foul play. I’ll bite and play devil’s advocate. Perhaps now that James Allen is not carrying the ticket of the Ponton brothers, he won’t get as many votes. Perhaps the 2,000 plus who voted for him won’t show up to vote again. It’s hard enough to get students between the ages of 18 and 24 to vote in a state government election once; I can’t imagine the fight of getting them to vote in an ASUA election twice. Maybe this new election will breed even more voters and we’ll have the chance of getting a truly representative student government and a president that can say that they truly hold a majority of the student body’s approval. Or maybe, a new candidate will rise and defeat both the violators. 

Now that I’ve got that out of my system, we can go back to the likely reality. The election will be pointless. Instead of a front-page photo with utter disbelief, we’ll get a celebratory one of our new student body president. Fewer students will come out to vote, and most likely all the hype that we all build, myself included, will inevitably let us down. If any outside candidate tries to run, they’ll most likely only serve to make the margin of victory larger for the inevitable winner.

When the smoke clears and the votes are tallied, we’ll most certainly get what we deserve: A student body president who cheated the rules, but won anyway. That is in no way a knock or endorsement for one candidate or the other, it is simply fact. Hernandez and Allen both broke the rules, and one of them will win nonetheless.

I conclude with a quick quote from Allen, who was a few violations away from being the student body President of “”YOUR student government.””  “”It is not good for the post (of president) for these sorts of violations to occur,”” he told the Wildcat. ””That was just the nature of the election this year.”” That is about the lamest excuse for a violation I’ve heard since Cam Newton whipped out the, “”I didn’t know my dad was shopping me around”” excuse.

— Storm Byrd is a political science sophomore. He can be reached at letters@wildcat.arizona.edu.