Letter to the Editor: Reporting on SGC-BBC elections ‘blemished with a number of errors’

Anastasiya Sizova/ Elections commissioner for this year’s BBC elections

The SGA BBC Elections Commission Board would like to thank The Beacon for recognizing our efforts in increasing participation for elections compared to previous years and  for acknowledging our progression. However, we noticed that the article entitled “SGC-BBC elections still missing options,” has construed a few misconceptions and was blemished with a number of errors.

Firstly, the article stated “the only candidate running for vice president is Michelle LaFontant.” However, the candidate’s name was misspelled and is actually Michema Lafontant.  

In the same paragraph, the article stated that “current Vice President Kenley Jean-Louis was previously listed as running alongside Mejia this election by Student Affairs.” According to Section 6.04, Heading (a), Subsection (vi), Subsection (3) of the SGA Elections Code, “Individuals running at BBC shall run for President and Vice-President separately.” Therefore, Jean-Louis and Mejia wouldn’t have been able to run together. The writer might have confused MMC’s statutes with BBC’s statutes, which is understandable. Even if the writer was unaware of the difference in statutes, she mentions Student Affairs, claiming that candidates Mejia and Jean-Louis were running together when there were no records indicating that.

In the following paragraph, the article states students have a choice “between two candidates for SJMC Senator, either Sudyen Navarrete or Marquele Brown, after the disqualification of Zainab Osazin.” Due to the fact that there are only two SJMC senate seats to begin with, both candidates should be voted into those seats.

Additionally, the article states that “neither Osazin nor Jean-Louis could be reached for comment regarding their drop from the elections.” Jean-Louis said that he spoke with the Beacon reporter, Sam Smith, on March 29 regarding elections and his reason for deciding to withdraw from the election which was that he was graduating and did not feel like he would be able to give his full commitment at SGA. In addition, Osazin did not “drop from the election,” rather, she was disqualified for missing mandatory candidate meetings, which leads to an automatic disqualification.

Finally, because this was an article and not an opinion piece, the last paragraph was puzzling because it seemed as though the reporter interjected her opinion when stating: “Regarding the ability of students to select their representatives from a pool of worthy candidates, this is a step in the right direction for BBC.” She also made it seem as though the candidates currently running are not qualified.

What the reporter fails to understand is that becoming a candidate is a rigorous process. It is not just applying for the position and getting automatically put onto the ballot. The elections committee made sure that each candidate met the requirements before being officially approved to run. Though our pool of candidates is small, they are still worthy candidates and whatever choices the student body makes, the school will surely be in good hands. The structure of the final sentence of the article also made it difficult for us to understand what idea was being conveyed.

In conclusion, the SGA BBC Elections Commission Board hopes that this letter will provide some clarification in regards to the information that was printed. We encourage the Beacon to visit our office and to talk with SGA officials as we are more than happy to answer any questions the Beacon may have regarding the elections or any other SGA-related questions. Thank you.

DISCLAIMER:

The opinions presented within this page do not represent the views of FIU Student Media Editorial Board. These views are separate from editorials and reflect individual perspectives of contributing writers and/or members of the University community.

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