In agreement with five Student Union senators who filed an appeal to the Union Judiciary, we believe that the Union Senate must reexamine the Nov. 4 passage of a financial amendment to the Union constitution.
Based only on a portion of the total votes cast, this passage does not accurately reflect the opinions of the Brandeis student body. In the vote in question, 591 students voted in favor of the amendment, 180 voted against, and 133 abstained, for a total of 904 votes.
When Union Secretary Danny Silverman '05 reported the amendment's passage, he counted the votes in favor as a percentage of the 771 affirmative or negative votes; this translates to 77 percent, which surpasses the two-thirds requirement dictated by the Union constitution. Silverman did not include abstentions in his tally. If he had, student approval of the amendment would have fallen short - albeit narrowly - of the necessary margin, with only 65 percent of votes in favor.

This counting method violates Article XII, Section 3 of the Union constitution, which states that "two-thirds of the voting members of the Union" must vote in favor of an amendment to invoke constitutional changes. We maintain that abstainers are still "voting members of the Union, and thus an abstention is a valid vote and cannot be disregarded. Students who did not vote at all chose to sacrifice their role in deciding the election's outcome, but students who abstained did so deliberately, perhaps with specific intentions. The Senate is obligated to recognize these students' votes. Why include abstain on the ballot if it is meaningless?

First, our student government must reassess the results of last week's vote. Next, and of equal importance, Union officers must make efforts to prevent future confusion by explaining the meaning of each option on the ballot. This is especially true given the inconsistency of ballot structure between school years. Two years ago, only two choices existed: yes or no. Last year, voters had four alternatives: yes, no, abstain and no vote. This year, the ballot lists the three aforementioned alternatives: yes, no and abstain. Students cannot be expected to keep up with the ever-shifting voting options without guidance.

The amendment is multi-pronged; one provision requires clubs to file detailed financial reports to Senate. As a matter that affects all clubs on campus, this is a highly sensitive issue and must be treated with the utmost consideration. Thus we support a Judiciary appeal because it allows closer inspection of a vote whose fairness is uncertain.