TO THE EDITOR:
On Friday, The Daily Tar Heel finally brought attention to one of the most blatant violations in Election Law (“Lee’s breach of the Code”). Ian Lee ran a presidential election campaign while maintaining his position as student body secretary.
The student body secretary is in charge of updating the student code, advising the president and leading the student body. As such, the student body secretary must be an unbiased head of the student government. One cannot run for student body president without supporting a campaign and trying to advance a particular set of political interests. This directly conflicts with the mission of being a successful, unbiased leader of the student body. The Student Code explains that the student body secretary cannot run for student body president in two separate parts.
The more important part of the Code, Title VI Article 3 Section 310, states that a campaign will be automatically disqualified “for Failure to Submit a Resignation for an Executive or Judicial Branch position.” Lee is currently running a campaign, but has failed to resign as student body secretary. According to the Student Code, his candidacy should be disqualified. Lee must step down as student body secretary if he would like to continue his campaign. If he does not, the Board of Elections clearly must disqualify him.
Christine Hajdin
Graduate Student
Chemistry
