Basic Civics for UCI?

Maybe the third time will be a charm, but students at UC Irvine will just have to keep holding student government elections until they get it right.

Last Thursday the UCI student council voided the results of a second election held to select student government representatives after a lawsuit was filed in federal court challenging the balloting as unconstitutional.

The first election, held last month to select five Associated Students executive officers and 20 student council representatives, was voided after it was discovered that about 450 illegal votes were cast through the use of forged student identification cards.

The second election led to a campaign clampdown in which the Associated Students prohibited student newspapers from endorsing candidates during voting and removed from news racks a Chicano student paper financed with student funds that published endorsements. The student government group also restricted the posting of election materials on campus.

Those actions prompted the American Civil Liberties Union to file a lawsuit in federal court challenging the second election, held May 14, on the ground that the election policies violated students’ constitutional rights. And the lawsuit prompted the student council to order the third election.

We don’t know what students are learning about government at UCI, but it seems that they could use a basic Civics 101 course so that tomorrow’s leaders can learn a bit more about the election process before they leave campus.

The students should take this third election effort more seriously. Only 22% turned out to vote in the first election. The second election drew half that number. More students should vote--legally. And campaigning and the free exchange of ideas must be encouraged. Stuffing ballot boxes and stifling free expression should be as alien to a university as it is to the governmental electoral process.