By Marcos Hernandez
Arizona Daily Wildcat
February 23, 1998

Wildcat suffers 'cranial-rectal inversion'

To the Editor:

I need to applaud the abilities of the Wildcat on its Feb. 20 editorial and its dubious staff in its meager attempt to disseminate the information that I provided to it concerning elections. Time and time again, the Wildcat has managed to show us that it suffers from an extremely bad case of cranial-rectal inversion and the unfortunate benefactor of this illness is the student populous.

The undertaking of an election is a process that takes months of planning in which dates are present, equipment is ordered, and the entire timeline of the elections solidified months prior to the actual event(s). In the past the past, and as recently as the November referendum, Pima County Elections Division donated their excess ballots, free of charge. When Pima County Elections decided to go to the new bubble in ballot system in which they scrapped their old system of ballots and the system to count those ballots, the ASUA Elections Commission was faced with problems. We could no longer use the excess generic punch ballots for our elections. The new ballots are unique and must be created specifically for the election that they plan to be used for. As a result, bubble ballots specifically designed must be produced for our elections, a cost that we never had to pay in the past. As for the need for a primary, or lack of it as inferred by the Wildcat, I don't frequent Dion Warwick's psychic line and have no ability to predict how many candidates will want to run for an ASUA office. If history is an indicator of candidate turnout, I would have expected a larger turnout. The Wildcat is so concerned with the waste of funds for a primary in which most of the candidates will move on and to this I have the following to say: "Heck, why don't we just scrap the elections all together. We'll let the Wildcat pick who they want in office. Forget the students, what do they care, it's not like they have a right to vote!"

As for the $1,600 that the Wildcat is taking ideas of what to do with, I have the following suggestion: Why not hire a competent staff that is able to formulate and entertain a notion of an idea? I know it's a long shot. We might be able to read something that hasn't been so obscured with unilateral, misinformed journalism!

Marcos Hernandez
ASUA Elections Commissioner