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Wednesday, May 1, 1996

7 percent voter turnout lowest seen in recent yearsBy Ryan Ozimek

Daily Bruin Contributor

After two uneventful weeks of elections, the results are in. Danise Kimball has been selected as next year's internal vice president of the Graduate Students' Association (GSA).

Despite a new, electronic election format, less than 7 percent of registered graduate students voted ­ the lowest voter turnout in recent years.

Since the start of the campaign, Kimball chose to join next year's external vice president-elect, Grace Chee, on the Progressive Student Action Slate.

Their slate emphasizes the importance of affirmative action, the mobilization of the graduate government, better communications among UCLA's graduate schools and support of the Students' Association of Graduate Employees organization (SAGE).

"A lot of our slate focused on infusing GSA with more activism, Kimball said. "Our slate gave students a different approach than is currently being taken in GSA."

Kimball defeated first-year graduate student Phu Tranchi who ran on the Diversity and Outreach slate,by a 15 percent margin.

Although disappointed with the loss, Tranchi still looked forward to working with the graduate government next year.

"I'm not as much disappointed with my loss," Tranchi said. "I believe that either of us would have done a good job for GSA."

"But instead I'm especially upset because we won't see a fee increase next year to help sponsor GSA community outreach programs because of the low voter turnout," he said, explaining that because turnout was less than 10 percent, two referenda on the ballot did not pass.

The low turnout invalidated a voter-approved fee increase and a change to the president's constitutional role in the graduate government.

"Katherine (Crosswhite, the elections commissioner) has done an excellent job this year to reach students for the election," said Loc Nguyen, the current internal vice president. "None of us expected less than a 10 percent voter turnout."

The additional $2 fee would have been put to support graduate government sponsored programs such as Melnitz Movies, the Environmental Coalition and a community fellows program.

This is of grave concern, officials explained, because a loan contract in the works between the students' association (ASUCLA) and the university's.is threatening to end Melnitz's program and the Environmental Coalition.

The terms in the loan restrict the association from giving the two student governments money ­ unless it is breaking even ­ to go towards their Student Interaction Funds.

If the loan is approved, the Graduate Students' Association will not receive any of the more than $30,000 it received last year to support Melnitz Movies and other student programs.

"By the beginning of the next fiscal year for the students' association, Melnitz Movies and the Environmental Coalition will be wiped out," Nguyen said.

Although the undergraduate student government successfully increased its fees by $5 just three years ago, the graduate association has been unable to raise fees as little as $2 since 1982.

Jerry Mann, the students' association's interim director of student support services, saw the graduate government reaching an important fiscal crossroad.

"If things don't begin to change, GSA may very well begin to wither away within the next four to five years," Mann said.

The two non-constitutional measures that passed focused on the the graduate government's affirmative action policies.

More than half the student voters (55 percent) agreed with the graduate government's disapproval of the University of California regents' decision to reverse affirmative action policies in hiring and admissions. About 57 percent approved of the graduate government and the students' association's use of affirmative action.

"The close vote on the two affirmative action referendums show that the subject isn't as one-sided as we once thought," Nguyen said.

Kimball begins her term of office by the end of May. She will be joined on next year's council with graduate President-elect Christopher Tymchuk and Chee, the graduate external vice president-elect, who both ran unopposed.

FRED HE/Daily Bruin

Danise Kimball