It’s that time of year again.

Time to pore over the A.S. election bylaws and fix last year’s mistakes.

ASUCSD’s first attempt this year was largely vetoed by A.S. President Jeremy Paul Gallagher. Among the items vetoed were a few golden nuggets that should have become part of the bylaws.

One provision would have made it clear that it’s illegal to violate the decisions of the A.S. Elections Committee. Last year, an entire slate was disqualified not for violating a specific bylaw, but for defying the committee’s will that the slate halt its campaigning. Technically, ignoring the committee’s decision isn’t part of the bylaws. This needs to be clarified for this year’s elections.

Another proposal changed the ban on classroom campaigning to “”active”” classroom campaigning. The council should go even further, banning only active campaigning that disrupts the lecture.

A part of the bill that did become law redefined how candidates can be punished for their supporters’ activities. The new bylaws’ definition of a candidate’s “”agent”” is overly broad, covering anyone “”acting on behalf”” of a candidate or slate, and removes a clause that would have required such official agents to register with the A.S. secretary. Without requiring agents to register, any anonymous supporter – or saboteur – could don a slate’s shirt and intentionally disrupt a classroom, allowing opposition forces an opportunity to disqualify the entire group. This bylaw should be repealed.

Finally, the vetoed bill included a new run off voting system. Since StudentLink is opposed to implementing instant run off voting because of difficulty associated with the vote-counting process, the A.S. Council should just ask StudentLink to count the votes. The council then can pay a third-party – or a bored Computer Science graduate student – to crunch the numbers.