Well, it appears the long ridiculous ASUC elections may finally be over. According to Beetle, SA won their appeal. I refuse to wait for a 20 page decision to comment!

You could definitely look at this result and say "Well, we all just wated our time," but I’ve now given this five minutes thought and I think this was the right outcome.

What was all the fighting about? Student Action refused to participate in the appeal process and tried to win by subverting the system. Through a lot of effort, they were basically forced to go back to the judicial council and participate in the real, constitutional mechanism of the ASUC.

Again, I haven’t read the decision. So long as it’s not rambling and incoherent, I assume it was fine. I must admit I thought the double jeopardy angle was weak, but there were plenty of other valid reasons they could’ve chosen. SA had several reasonable grounds of appeal (which is again what made their rash actions over the last month so strange). I personally think the bylaws are seriously flawed if there was no reasonable punishment for blatant perjury, but that’s a matter for reform and not something the Judicial Council can really fix on the fly.

I must admit that I would’ve been happiest if the entire ASUC were somehow destroyed by all this and we got to rebuild it from scratch, but at least now the system, however flawed, is going to keep operating under its basic constitution instead of through a crazy free-for-all whatever the Exec says system. I’d rather have the current flawed constitution in place than have it just be completely ignored which would encourage every year to become an insane lawsuit filled struggle.