Letter to the Editor: Election violations

To the Editor:

This Sunday afternoon, I sat in Room G17 of Logan Hall and witnessed what is possibly the most ridiculous waste of time and energy of the multitude of campus events at Penn. The event was none other than the presentation of charges of election code violations against candidates for student offices, held by the NEC.

I watched as well-intentioned students defended themselves against a barrage of pointed but ultimately insignificant questions from NEC members concerning almost entirely one thing: the use of facebook.com and its groups in early campaigning.

Now perhaps the NEC wants to feel as if it still has relevance as a campus organization, but I felt as if these hearings were trivial despite holding in their hands the fate of well-meaning candidates. Indeed, most of these students had no idea that certain Facebook groups were started on their behalf, and like 527 groups in the last federal election in 2004, may have ultimately aided the campaign without the candidate's consent.

I understand that the NEC wants to punish forces that may have wanted to unfairly sway the election, but let's be honest here: can one post on a Facebook wall illegitimately give a candidate the numbers he needs to win? There was, I contend, no malice intended by the starting of these groups -- no candidate's signs were vandalized or tampered with and thankfully no slanderous campaigns were launched (at least to my knowledge.)

If this is so, then we must ask ourselves: has the NEC found violations simply for its own sake? Haven't we had enough of this senseless, extensive bureaucracy at Penn?

Philip Rocco

College '09

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