Over the past week and a half, Joe Nail’s student body president campaign has been a roller coaster. First, he was disqualified. Then, he appealed. Then, his candidacy was reinstated. Now, there is a freeze on election activities. And, quite frankly, we’re a little confused.
As a fellow student organization, we understand the challenges of coordinating a large group of busy students. We are not trying to be overly harsh, but recent events within student government leave a lot to be desired from our elected leaders.
The Board of Elections found Nail guilty of two false starts, two technology violations and one falsification, so he was disqualified from the student body president election. But because the Board of Elections did not have the necessary five members, the guilty violations were overturned, and Nail was allowed to resume campaign activities along with the other candidates. This is where we get confused.
This is where we ask, why didn’t the Board of Elections have the necessary five members?
It is important to note that this editorial board is not calling for Nail to be disqualified from the election. Rather, we are asking, why did this verdict have to come from the UNC Supreme Court in the first place? Why is the Board of Elections short-staffed? It is the job of our elected student government officials to fill the Board of Elections with the necessary members, but it seems that our officials failed to do that.
This board has not been silent in our thoughts about the position of student body president and our student government at large. We have criticized past student body presidents on their inability to create real change and our student government’s perennial inability to capture the needs of all students.
This issue, the one of not being able to fill a student government organization, is one of institutional failure. Sure, we’d really like for student government to lobby on behalf of students in the General Assembly. And yes, we’d really love it if our student body president actually fought for students’ interests on the Board of Trustees. But at the very, very, very least, we expect our student government to be able to fill its own positions. If it can’t even do that, what can it do?
This is a crucial moment for student voices and empowerment. Our self-governance has already faced challenges this year, the national and state political sphere is increasingly toxic and University funding seems to be in real jeopardy. This is not the time to have students, faculty and the entire UNC community question our abilities to organize and operate political, governing bodies.
Thus, we implore all candidates for student body president to consider this as they move forward in their campaigns. Please, ask yourselves, will you be able to staff the Board of Elections? Will you be able to fill all your cabinet positions? Will you be able to create enough buy-in so that students show up to meetings? If the answer is no, think critically about your candidacy.
