Endorsing an endorsement?

It’s election season for Duke Student Government, and the campaigns are in full swing. Public endorsements, however, might not be—or worse, they might bear a government stamp of approval.

Ten days before DSG’s executive election March 31, the Election Commission released its reforms for this year—most notably a change to the endorsement process that infringes on student groups’ autonomy from DSG and adds a layer of oversight that could allow for manipulation of the election itself.

According to the new guidelines, a member of the Election Commission—which is technically separate from DSG but overlaps significantly with the governing body—will sit in on each group’s endorsement meeting to ensure that all candidates are heard and receive equal time. The groups are then asked to submit their endorsements to the Election Commission, which would certify the endorsements and inform candidates that a decision has been made before the groups submit their endorsement for publication.

Student groups’ endorsements add a valuable dimension to the election process because they get more of the student body thinking about the candidates and what they want out of their leaders. Published endorsements benefit not only members of those groups, but the community at large, as many students are not affiliated with the groups that endorse and would not otherwise have any extra information about the races.

Each group that chooses to endorse candidates has the responsibility to support those candidates who will serve its needs best. Furthermore, each group has the right to decide how it will select the candidates it deems best fit for the positions and how it will publicize that endorsement. The DSG endorsement reforms complicate the process and add regulation that is neither necessary nor proper.

The spirit behind the changes in endorsement guidelines—a desire to encourage groups to give each candidate an equal shot at selling himself—is fair and appropriate, but some of the stipulations miss the mark. By requiring—or even requesting—groups to submit their endorsements for certification before they submit them for publication, the Election Commission is opening the door for manipulation.

Even though the Election Commission is largely independent of DSG, it still includes members of the Senate and is chaired by a Cabinet member. And even if these election officials would run the certification process without getting in the way of groups’ right to make their own decisions, there is no guarantee that such manipulation wouldn’t happen in the future. In institutionalizing such a reform, the Election Commission must guard against its future abuse.

These reforms seem like they were rushed and not thought through completely, judging by the way they were passed and subsequently publicized. They were released just a week and a half before the election, after the candidates had declared they were running and after it was too late for them to participate in any serious discussion of the changes’ merit. Several student group leaders learned of the reforms when The Chronicle interviewed them to ask for their reaction, and the changes seem firm even though there is neither time for debate nor any enforcement mechanism.