In the Student Association election, students were led to believe that unless the proposed increase in the student activity fee passed, the entire thing would disappear. There’s only one problem — this wasn’t true.

The office of SA President Adam Amit sent out multiple SA-Line e-mails to encourage students to approve the mandatory student activity fee, and sent out Facebook invitations urging students to vote yes to all three questions on the ballot. The group reads, “We MUST PASS these questions on the ballot this Wednesday and Thursday so that we can have a Student Association next year.”

But, as Amit admitted, the vote for an increase to the fee didn’t actually have to pass for the fee to stay (see Page 1). We would have kept the $86.50 per student anyway and the SA would have continued on, albeit slightly less funded than some wanted it to be.

The issue isn’t the money itself — $6 dollars isn’t going to break anyone’s wallet — but the fact that the increase passed under false pretenses. Amit’s words traveled to poll sitters and community governments, who naturally urged students to approve the increase. They did, but based on faulty and misleading logic. The increase may have passed regardless, and will probably still allow the SA to bring us bigger and better programs next year, but this wasn’t the way to get it through.

If our president doesn’t bother to be 100 percent sure of the rules before having his office tell campus media and the entire student body to vote for something, who will? For people in positions of such power, “I didn’t know” is not a suitable excuse. In fact, high school is the cutoff.

We spoke recently on the importance of taking responsibility for mistakes. When Amit realized the problem, the SA should have sent out (yet another) SA-Line explaining the situation to students in plain language; the issue would have been cleared up, no harm done. Instead, they’ve set a terrible precedent for future elections.

One student found that it’s particularly difficult to file a grievance against the SA in the matter, and that needs to change. The president’s office is not allowed to use its resources to support a particular candidate — why isn’t it forbidden from using them to influence votes of a different sort? The amendment in the works to ensure the “SA cannot endorse a candidate or a referendum” is a step in the right direction, and should help ensure this does not happen again.

It would have been nice to see an election go off flawlessly for once, and our student leaders set an example for the administration. Oh well, maybe next year.