Cardinal Impact kicked off the 2009 Student Government Association elections at a low level, but it was somehow able to climb to the top as it beat out two better slates of executive candidates.
The slate pushed through a highly tarnished reputation to end up with 1,444 more votes than University Coalition and Cardinal Collaboration.
The missteps began with ignorance of simple nomination application requirements and were compounded as the slate dodged questions about the controversy. Ambiguity turned into outright lies and personnel resignations. And the questionable ethics continued throughout the rest of the campaign.
In spite of this, Cardinal Impact was able to mobilize enough votes to walk away winners and the future voice of Ball State University students.
For the next year, students will have to live with representatives who have been proved undeserving.
The fact that the slate was able to pull off a victory after a campaign start President-elect Beth Cahill called a "fiasco" is evident not of the slate's competence, but of the broken system that allowed such a result.
The means by which interested students become elected SGA executives is at times overly complicated and at times arbitrary.
For starters, the brief campaign season leads to a slew of problems. In only 15 days, students don't have enough time to learn about candidates, and slates don't have enough time for productive counterarguments or thorough campus canvassing.
A month-long campaign season would give everyone a little breathing room and would likely reduce the number of mistakes slates make when they're pressured by deadlines.
Also, the Election Code needs revision and enforcement.
The code demands an out-of-date signature requirement that no one can seem to justify and that caused problems from the get-go this year.
The code should also outline explicit rules for slates' punishment or disqualification if they are shown to be unable to meet application requirements or to be unethical.
This year, Cardinal Impact and University Coalition failed to apply correctly, and they were both still allowed to run. Cardinal Impact failed to act ethically throughout the campaign, but it remained in the race.
Furthermore, the power of the Elections Board needs better definition.
As all three slates violated basic campaign rules about sending e-mails or posting fliers this year, the board arbitrarily doled out monetary fines based on what it felt was "appropriate."
Such decisions should instead be based on a clearly developed system of standards.
This campaign season, a glut of problems has contributed to the election of Cardinal Impact.
The only thing the slate has done right so far is convince 1,838 students to vote for it despite its string of missteps. Whether the problems that plagued the slate through election season will last through its tenure is yet to be seen.
It's definite, though, that the executive slate that has thoroughly embarrassed itself thus far will make decisions on behalf of the student body for a year; there's no changing that now.
But what can change is the system that helped put such a slate in office.
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