On April 3, ASUCI announced the disqualification of Student Advocate candidate Ariana Thomas due to the violation of the elections code. Thomas was the only candidate running for the position.
Elections Commissioner Nicole Nowak was informed of the violation on April 1 after an investigation was conducted by Student Government Student Media professional staff.
If all candidates for a particular position are disqualified or withdraw from the race, the elections commission reopens declarations of candidacy. However, at the time of publishing, no new declarations of candidacy have been made.
The position of student advocate is a new version of the current student advocate general (SAG) position. The proposed constitution has an amendment calling for the removal of the SAG position.
“If the constitutional amendment passes — it receives enough quorum and enough affirmative votes — then the student advocate position would be null and void. We don’t have to worry about that anymore. There is going to be no position for that as an elected position,” Nowak told New University. “If the constitutional amendment does not pass, the elections commission will have to run a special election either this year or in the fall quarter for the student advocate position.”
ASUCI President Alondra Arevalo says the SAG is meant to educate students on policy, but the role is redundant.
“Although the position is there as a mediator, it is not really used as such,” Arevalo told New University. “Throughout the, I guess the last several years, the SAG office in general has been pretty much like an HR office for internal ASUCI stuff.”
Arevalo said that many of the roles performed by the SAG office will now be handled by the office of the Internal Vice President.
Spring general election voting begins on April 13 at 9 a.m. and ends on April 17 at 5 p.m. For more information on ASUCI elections, visit elections.uci.edu.
Alejandra Rodriguez Zepeda is a News Staff Writer. She can be reached at alejar16@uci.edu.
