GOVERNMENT BILL 86

Chairman Kelli Rogers submitted the following report regarding Government Bill 86, "A BILL TO BE ENTILED AN ACT TO AUTHORIZE USE OF PREFERENTIAL BALLOTING IN STUDENT BODY ELECTIONS AND TO PROVIDE FOR DETERMINATION OF PREFERENTIAL BALLOT WINNERS ", to the Student Senate on Tuesday, February 26th 2008, on behalf of the Government Operations Committee, and pursuant to its Sunday, February 24th 2008 recommendations, by general consent:

As provided by Senate Rule, the committee requests that the Senate President place Government Bill 86, on the calendar for second reading.

Attendance:

There were three (3) members (Gannon, Phelps, Rogers) present.

There were two (2) members (Burrell, Cioffi) absent.

The following officials were also present: P. Barnes, Compton, Joseph Davis, Rose.

A quorum was present.

Purpose of Legislation:

This legislation changes how elections are done both for student body officers as well as for senators. READ IT!!!

The majority of the text of this legislation was provided by the company that created the program and is a detailed explanation of how the program will run. It will not be necessary for any of the elections commissioners to calculate any of the information. The program will tally the votes all on its own.

Debate:

Most of the debate on this bill consisted of an explanation of the program and how it would work in certain situations. Adam Compton pulled up the program and demonstrated how it would look to voters. READ THE BILL BEFORE YOU ASK ANY QUESTIONS!

Recommendations:

We are going to recommend that the Senate President require all senators who wish to speak on this bill to have read the bill in it entirety because of its complexity. (you should have done that anyway)

The committee also voted to placed this bill under closed rule, requiring a 2/3 override of the senate to bring it out of closed rule.

Committee Amendments:

The amendments made to the bill were made either by the sponsor or simply for clarification purposes.