In an effort to increase transparency, the Missouri Students Association is working to be more consistent in posting voting records online as part of a website overhaul for the upcoming year.
Making voting records readily available to the student body has been a goal for MSA for years, but it has been delayed primarily due to rapid senator turnover. MSA Social Media and Technology Coordinator Riley de Leon said the [events of last year’s MSA presidential election](https://www.themaneater.com/stories/2016/1/28/how-msa-senate-toppled-their-president-elect/) made it clear that changes needed to be made in order to increase transparency.
“The decision, ultimately, to post the voting records is more of an accountability check,” de Leon said. “It ensures that we are doing our jobs, and that people see that.”
He went on to say that improving the format of voting records, and increasing the frequency they are posted, would allow students to become more informed about the agendas of their MSA senators, allowing them to choose the right candidate come election season.
Improving access to voting records on the MSA website is just one of many goals de Leon said he had for MSA’s online presence. He said an organizational overhaul for the MSA website was long overdue, and the executive cabinet’s Department of Student Communication was already hard at work updating the website.
The decisionis the beginning of MSA’s plan to repair the breach of trust between the student body and MSA in the upcoming year.
Senate Speaker Mark McDaniel hopes to accomplish this restoration of trust by limiting the amount of pull current officers in MSA have on elections by enforcing neutrality clauses in MSA’s bylaws.
“One of the big discussions that we had at the end of last year was, ‘How far could members of MSA influence elections?’” McDaniel said. “We’re making sure that the president and their cabinet, or the speaker and their cabinet, aren’t using their official capacity as leaders to try to influence students.”
Last January, former President-elect Haden Gomez [resigned](https://www.themaneater.com/stories/2016/1/27/haden-gomez-and-chris-hanner-resign-payton-head-an/) the night of his scheduled inauguration after [GroupMe screenshots revealed](https://www.themaneater.com/stories/2016/1/27/screenshots-shed-light-gomezhanner-campaign-infrac/) his campaign violated the Board of Elections Commissioners Handbook. Former Speaker Kevin Carr [came under fire](https://www.themaneater.com/stories/2016/1/31/msa-ccrc-chairman-resigns-after-senate-drives-out-/) for allowing a prolonged and intense open forum session, which one former senator described as “public execution.” Former MSA Advisor Farouk Aregbe [accused Carr](https://www.themaneater.com/stories/2016/2/24/flaws-msa-highlighted-2015-election/) of siding with the opposing Syed Ejaz/Heather Parrie slate.
“It is clear that a lot of people in this room supported one candidate or another, and we have to keep that in mind,” Aregbe said during an emergency Operations meeting before the Senate meeting in which Gomez resigned.
McDaniel served on the Board of Elections Commissioners for one year after departing MSA and was very critical of the election process when he returned to MSA. He voiced his concerns in a [letter to the editor](https://www.themaneater.com/stories/2016/2/3/why-i-returned-senate/) published by The Maneater in February.
In the letter, McDaniel stated his objections regarding the way MSA handled filling the vacant presidential and vice presidential seats. He said thousands of MU students were having their voices silenced due to the elitist mindset that MSA had developed, or the “involvement cult,” as he called it.
A key goal MSA set for itself prior to the upcoming school year is increasing the level of accessibility that students have to their government. Last March, Carr proposed an act that requires Senate to hear any petition that receives 50 signatures or more. McDaniel urged students to use the petition process as a tool to have their voices heard.
“We haven’t been doing too good of a job promoting that to students,” he said regarding the new petition process. “A student government that ignores the voices of students should disband immediately.”
_Edited by Emily Gallion | egallion@themaneater.com_
