The Student Assembly (SA) discussed the role of the Elections Committee during Monday night’s UGBC election and the limited availability of Flo Rida tickets during its meeting on Tuesday night.
“I think yesterday, a lot of issues with the Elections Committee came up that reflect poorly on all of us, in the sense that we already struggle with a lot of legitimacy issues in the student body,” said Joshua Golden, Community Relations Committee chair and MCAS ’25. “I think that when we have such a controversy around our election, that it just totally delegitimizes us even more.”
Golden also served as the chief policy coordinator for former UGBC presidential and vice presidential candidates Jordan Nakash and Yosan Tewelde, both MCAS ’24, and he called for increased transparency of the Election Commitee’s rules and how they are executed.
“The things that are sort of not allowed I think need to be more explicitly written and explicitly communicated to everybody involved,” Golden said.
Golden also suggested that UGBC consider looking for a new administrative adviser. Matt Razek, associate director for student programming and primary advisor to UGBC, is the current overseeing official for the Elections Committee and was present at Tuesday’s SA meeting.
“[Razek], please, I don’t mean this in any disrespectful way to you, I just think that part of what we need to do … is just having, I guess, a different adviser,” Golden said.
Golden clarified he was not implying Razek influenced the final election results, but that his role as primary adviser to UGBC could pose a conflict of interest while advising the Elections Committee, which is organizationally independent from UGBC.
“It seems like there’s just a possibility for a conflict of interest to happen, and I don’t want those small things … preventing UGBC from having the actual legitimacy that I think it deserves,” Golden said.
Razek responded by saying that he would be enthusiastic to discuss the processes and history of the Elections Committee in more detail with anyone interested.
“I think that bringing it up here is good,” Razek said. “I’d be more than happy to meet with individuals one on one or as a group just to talk through ideas.”
The SA then discussed the new batch of Flo Rida tickets set to open tomorrow morning.
“I know we got an extra, additional 1000 [tickets],” said Thompson Penn, chair of the Student Life Committee and CSOM ’25. “Is that going to be enough to cover the rest of the student body that didn’t get tickets?”
According to Razek, even after the new tickets go on sale, only about 65 percent of the student body will have tickets. This contradicts claims at last week’s SA meeting that every student would be able to attend the concert.
“No, I think they only gave 5,000 out—5,000 was the original number,” Razek said. “So that would bring it up to 6,000, and there’s about 9,200 or 9,300 undergrads.”
Razek explained that because the Mod Lot will be enclosed with barriers for safety and security reasons, the area will have a maximum capacity limit.
“Because it’s blocked off, that’s why you hit a capacity,” Razek said.
