Former Student Senator Starts Campaign to Keep Pizza Off of Election Tables

March 21, 2011 – As the campaign for student government president approaches a familiar commodity at election tables is once again coming under scrutiny, namely pizza.  Every year students are patronized with the Italian foodstuff in an effort to get them to vote for the pizza procuring presidential hopeful.  However this year former student senator and governmental affairs committee chair Tyler Smith is doing something to stop the savory scourge and the candidates who hope to prey upon the apathetic student who consumes it.  His plan according to his account to a reporter with the Vanguard Voice is, “If we can't beat the system, we will eat the system”.  According to election policy it is required that any food products being offered at election stations must be available to all students regardless of whether and how they vote.  It is this weakness in the system that Mr. Smith seeks to exploit.

This is most certainly not the first time that such open bribery has been attempted to be thwarted.  From the earliest historical record available to the Voice of a student attempting to stop the practice, is that of former senator Webster Cook of the 40^th student senate.  Mr. Cook attempted to pass reform intended to require candidates to disclose campaign spending.  However, since virtually all campaign spending comes out of the pockets of the candidates, it seems unlikely that such reform would be enforceable.  It appears that similar concerns were raised at the time and the elections and appropriations committee failed the bill when it was referred to them.

This was not the end of the matter as there were still unattended to unease.  Many students are still worried about the ability of more prosperous students to buy the election with gifts of food to those who would otherwise fail to vote.  Among them was then chair of the Golden Rule Review committee, Stephen Mortellaro.  Last year he submitted a proposal to make it a violation of the code of conduct for a student to attempt to offer any items other than strictly informational materials with the intent to influence the student’s decision to vote in any manner.  In an interview with the Vanguard Voice Mr. Mortellaro described his decision to promote the proposal within the Golden Rule committee, “the reason I was pursuing that through Golden Rule, not Senate, was because Senate has NO enforcement power over third parties.  Senate cannot "impeach" non-SGA members who give bribes”.  However, in part due to the intervention of current presidential candidate Nicholas Gurney and notoriously corrupt senator Jeremy Pozin, the measure failed.

For the edification of our Dearest readers the following is the proposal as presented by Mr. Mortellaro:

“Proposal to Amend Regulation UCF-5.012 “Organizational Rules of Conduct”

Proposal to create a new Subsection (e) under Section 3 “Disruptive Conduct” and renumber all other subsections accordingly.  The new (e) is to state the following:

The act of gifting money, food, t-shirts, or any other item of value, except informational literature printed on paper or paperboard, to another student to influence or induce that student to vote, not vote, or vote for or against any candidate, group of candidates, or ballot referendum in any election conducted by a student organization or the Student Government Association.”

This is particularly relevant in light of Regulation UCF-5.008 Rules of Conduct, Section 3(c), which reads as follows, "An act which tampers with the election(s) of any University student organization or group including major violations of the SGA Election Statutes”.  Had then chair Mortellaro’s proposal been accepted it would have been possible for the Office of Student Conduct to bring punitive measures against students found guilty of violating the aforementioned rule 5.008.

The current campaign is being coordinated by Mr. Smith, Ms. Fitzpatrick, and former Interfraternity Council and homecoming king Kyle Schumacher.  Mr. Smith points out that the current campaign is “loosely coordinated”, but appears to have quickly found strong support from students.  At this point the Facebook page from which the campaign is being run (see the following: http://on.fb.me/eKQQdP), has 150 supporters in less than a day of being posted.  In addition to eating any pizza being offered, Mr. Smith notes that the plan is to also encourage students to vote for pizza as a write-in candidate as well.  Representatives of the movement have notified the Voice that this plan will be enacted during election week (beginning March 28^th and ending March 30^th), if either ticket offers pizza as an incentive to vote.  Mr. Smith ensured the Voice that both tickets will be notified of this plan.