As the school year comes to an end, many clubs and organizations (CLOGs) have held officer elections for next year — if they can even be considered elections. Several CLOGs did not allow candidates to apply for certain officer positions to allow current officers to continue in their roles without an election or had an election model where candidates were interviewed and appointed by existing officers without voting from members. Both methods violate Associated Student Body (ASB) guidelines for deciding core officers unless there are special, pre-approved circumstances and clearly unfair to candidates, but many CLOGs have proceeded with them anyway. To prevent these unethical practices, MHS needs more communication and stricter enforcement from ASB, and CLOGs must be fair in their election processes.
ASB already checks each CLOG’s constitution during the CLOG chartering process to make sure that it states that the CLOG will conduct elections in which members vote for the core officers (president, vice president, secretary, and treasurer), with exceptions granted in special circumstances. However, many CLOGs don’t follow their constitutions in practice, as I have observed through personal experience and officer application advertisements from various CLOGs on social media platforms.
This year, ASB is also planning to check CLOGs’ April meeting minutes, due May 19, for a member vote count for each of the core positions and will require CLOGs to redo elections if there isn’t one. While this is a step in the right direction, a lot of things can easily be overlooked: CLOGs could falsify vote counts to avoid redoing elections; elections may be held in May instead of April, when meeting minutes aren’t required and thus can’t be checked; and even after ASB tells CLOGs to redo their elections, there may be a lack of enforcement.
It may not seem like a big issue that high school clubs aren’t conducting elections democratically, but it has a big impact on aspiring candidates and a club’s integrity. If a CLOG prevents a student from running for a position, they are depriving students of their right to contest for a leadership role in the community. If the same election process happens in a real government, it’s labeled as a dictatorship and condemned as people in power making decisions to stay in power — so how can the same practice be allowed to persist in our CLOG elections?
CLOGs that interview and appoint officers, because they lack enough members for a fair vote, should focus on improving member engagement for the future. In the meantime, they must have a large, diverse interview panel that is unbiased towards the candidates, with scoring criteria, to minimize interview bias. In general, current officers should not be able to appoint themselves or new officers to the officer board because results can be based on favoritism or nepotism instead of candidate qualifications.
Another issue is that CLOGs often restrict who can apply for an officer position based on certain criteria like experience, which is reasonable, but these criteria can also easily be manipulated by officers to eliminate competition. Thus, a CLOG’s criteria for candidates should also be included in the constitution so they can be verified as reasonable.
Right now, elections lack clarity and transparency, and the simplest solution is for ASB to standardize the election process. First, ASB must establish the ground rules for elections clearly and early on, before most CLOGs start their elections in April. This year, guidelines were discussed at the CLOG council in late April, after most CLOGs had already conducted their elections. Furthermore, with each of the over 80 CLOGs on campus hosting their own elections on their own timelines, ASB can’t effectively monitor each CLOG’s individual elections. However, if ASB creates a portal where CLOGs must add their voting forms and chooses a designated election period for all CLOG members to cast their votes, it can ensure that CLOGs are hosting equitable elections.
CLOGs are trusted institutions that can have a lot of impact on the community — take it from someone who has seen CLOGs fundraise thousands of dollars to donate, handle recycling for the entire MHS campus, or manage hundreds of elementary school students in an in-person tutoring program. Entrusted with such responsibility, CLOGs must preserve the integrity of their elections to find the best student leaders possible and benefit both the CLOG and the community.