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About Oregon daily emerald. (Eugene, Or.) 1920-2012 | View Entire Issue (Nov. 9, 2000)
Student Senate wades through school minutia ■The Senate’s business includes special requests and appointments to the ASUO Constitution Court By Emily Gust Oregon Daily Emerald The ASUO Constitution Court’s empty seats have been filled, and the ASUO Student Senate has Student Senate made it through one more Wednes day night meeting. During an hour and a half of ap pointments, special re quests, and other busi ness, the Sen ate appointed two more members to the five-member court, which means the body is now complete. The Senate unanimously ap pointed second-year law student Richard Jameson, who said he was “solid anaJytically.”“I would feel very comfortable having him on the court,” Senate President Peter Watts said. Political science major Alan Tauber was the undergraduate ad dition, and he said his deep inter est in law made him a good candi date. Several senators spoke in favor of Tauber, including Sen. Jennifer Greenough, who said that “he has a very high level of integrity.” Plowing through another two appointments, the Senate placed two students on the Senate Pro grams Finance Committee: third year biochemistry major Aaron Week and junior pre-psychology major Lawrence Gillespie. Week was a member of the PFC last year. In addition to appointments, the Senate passed three special re quests, ranging from $999 to $38 in surplus funds. The first request came from the YWCA, which asked for $475 from surplus to help cover the cost of publishing its new magazine, Identity. YWCA magazine coordinator Alissa Scott said the magazine — which is brand-new this year and thus was not included in the group’s budget last year — will fo cus on issues such as sexism, racism and diversity. Many senators supported the re quest, saying that allowing more voices to be heard on campus is an important thing. “I just think the poverty of dia logue on issues of diversity on this campus is something we need to think about,” Sen. Serene Khader said. The Senate passed a request from the ASUO Executive asking for $999 to help cover some of the registration costs for a leadership conference in Portland. The North west Student Leadership Confer ence takes place this weekend, and students from several ASUO groups will attend. A final request of $38 was ap proved for the Future Lawyers As sociation to cover the cost of rent ing the Knight Library Browsing Room earlier this term. The room was rented to host a speech by Judge Paul DeMuniz, who was then running for a spot on the state Supreme Court. Land Air Water approached the senate with something a bit differ ent Wednesday night: It sought the senate’s opinion on a potential re quest. LAW hosts the Public Inter est Environmental Law Confer ence each spring, an event that attracts more than 3,000 people from around the country. The group would like to present a keynote speaker from Madagas car but recently realized a plane ticket from that country would cost about $6,000. LAW has already raised $24,000 for the conference and the Senate budgeted the group $6,000 for this year. LAW said that it may be pos sible to raise an additional $1,000 or so before the conference, but $6,000 was not possible. Most senators agreed the request was something they would either consider or support if and when it comes in the spring. President continued from page 1A da holds the key to the national race. Buchanan got 3,407 votes for president in the heavily Democra tic county Tuesday, more than he received in any other Florida county, according to unofficial re turns. Two larger counties south of Palm Beach both had much lower Buchanan results — 789 in Broward County and 561 in Mia mi-Dade County. In Duval County, a much more conservative county in northeast Florida, only 650 Buchanan votes were cast. The confusion apparently arose from the way the county’s punch card style ballot was laid out. Can didates are listed in two columns, with holes down the middle be tween the columns, to the right or the left of each candidate’s name. The top hole was for Bush, who was listed at top left; the second r hole was for Buchanan, listed at top right, and the third hole was for Gore, listed under Bush on the left. Arrows linked the names with the proper hole, but some voters feared they had missed the arrows and punched the wrong hole. Florida law specifies that voters mark an X in the blank space to the right of the name of the candidate they want to vote for. Jeff Liggio, a lawyer for county Democrats, called the ballot illegal “Right means right, doesn’t it? The state law says right. It doesn’t mean left,” he said. Don A. Dillman of the American Association for Public Opinion Re search, who has done research on the design of paper questionnaires, agreed that the ballot was confus ing. “I’ve never seen one set up like this,” Dillman said from Pullman, Wash. “It’s very confusing the way they have put things on the right side together with things on the 010644 the UO cultural forum in their only Oregon appearance thursday, nov, 16, 9pm the WOW hal 8th and lincoln in downtown engine sn eugene # house of records & the WOW hall left side. I can see why there might be a problem. If you passed over the first candidate to go for the sec ond candidate, it’s logical that you’d punch the second hole.” But Clay Roberts, director of the Florida Department of Elections, said the problem was exaggerated. “I don’t think they are confused. I think they left the polling place and became confused. The ballot is very straightforward,” said Roberts, a Republican appointed by Gov. }eb Bush, George W.’s brother. Meanwhile, officials began re counting nearly 6 million ballots to determine the next president, while Democrats and some voters complained of irregularities in the election. The recount in all 67 counties was triggered by state law because Bush led Gore by less than one half of 1 percent. State officials said they will count every ballot again and expect to be finished by the end of today. In Florida and elsewhere, De mocrats grumbled about long lines at the polls, reports that ballots were late in arriving at polling places and other possible irregu larities. “We’ve received literally thou sands of telephone calls and in quiries and reports of irregularities like ballots appearing and disap pearing, voter intimidation and the totals of this election sort of myste riously disappearing and growing overnight,” state Democratic Party chairman Bob Poe said. Florida elections supervisors also waited for an undetermined number of overseas ballots, prima rily from military personnel and their families. The state allows 10 days after the election for the bal lots to come in. The state counted about 2,300 overseas ballots in the 1996 presi dential election - more than the margin separating Gore and Bush this time - so there is a remote possibility that those ballots alone could change the outcome. 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