#SFatPauley – Concerns about UCLA’s Efforts to "Fix" The Student Seating Vote

Don't forget to sign the petition to get students back on the sidelines today and also join Facebook event asking UCLA students to vote to restore court-side seating.

Bellerophon's post laid out the serious concerns about the Daily Bruin's less than stellar coverage of the Pauley student seating fiasco. The campus newspaper which is supposed to be an independent voice for the students went out of its way to collaborate with an out of touch and dysfunctional athletic department to remove from the courtside of New Pauley.

While the move to put this issue directly infront of the students starting tomorrow is a step towards the right direction, we remain deeply concerned about the process with no faith in any aspect of the UCLA administration ranging from the athletic department to so called student representatives from both USAC and the Den.

All we know right now that there will be a question concerning new student seating plan on the USAC election ballot, which will start tomorrow at 1 p.m. and end Thursday at 8 p.m. But no one here has seen an official copy of the ballot yet.

Once again the process has taken place behind the scenes with no effort to make it transparent. Fox 71, for good reasons expressed the following skepticism:

Who is counting the votes in this election? I don't know how it works, but somehow I suspect the school administration is involved. If the school administration counts the votes, then I don't trust it. The school administration includes Morgan Center. The school administration also includes our esteemed Chancellor, who appears to see athletics as some archaic distraction to the true goal of the university, which is fundraising - er, education.

That is a legitimate concern based on how the UCLA athletics department and the entire administration have behaved in recent weeks in this sad boondoggle.

Every election I have ever voted on usually present a sample ballot before the voting started, so that the voters actually had time to learn about the candidates, issues and learn a little before going into the booth or voting online. Here we have not seen a sample ballot yet and it looks like we will not have an idea - unless someone emails us today - how the question is going to appear on the ballot.

This is not a good situation and it raises serious questions about how the election will be administered. The best steps UCLA students (and alums who are concerned about this) can take right now is to continue join the Facebook event bringing attention to this vote. Also, if you have not done it, don't forget to sign the petition.