Judicial Council Decision on EAP Voting Rights
The JCouncil recently released their decision, ruling that EAP students' voting rights are not unconstitutionally denied under the current system. From the Majority Opinion by Associate Justice Aidan Ali-Sullivan, with whom Senior Associate Justice Nikhil Cooper, and Associate Justices Nile Taylor and Amaris White join:

The majority opinion holds that those students participating in education away from the Berkeley campus, be it EAP, UCDC, or other such program are not having their constitutional right taken away by any mechanism of the ASUC. While we do recognize the effective situation this creates by the improbability of a student flying thousands of miles from their current living situation to return and vote in Berkeley, we believe this is a self imposed situation; one students take with full knowledge of the hardships they may face in regard to ASUC elections. Furthermore, this is not by any means a taking away of rights; at any time such student can return to campus and vote with the same right as any other registered student. The distance they travel, whether one block or one thousand miles, is irrelevant; it is ultimately just a difference by degree.

From the Minority Opinion by Chair Robert D Gregg IV, with whom Associate Justice Marisa Cuevas joins:

However, by simply ignoring the logistical inaccessibility for EAP student voting (such as an ocean of physical separation), the ASUC has an institutional barrier that is effectively denying their right to vote. If it is logistically infeasible for someone to exercise a right, that right is effectively being denied. This is not a matter of giving everyone the same “ease of access,” as this barrier is to such a degree that it is unsurpassable.
Therefore, it is our opinion that no difference exists between an effective denial and an active denial -- both are equally unconstitutional under Article 1 Section 2. The majority believes an effective denial is legal, and by doing so they are allowing the effective disenfranchisement of thousands of EAP students.

For those people who want more information on this matter, the combined majority and minority opinions are only about a page and a half total, so you can download the whole thing yourself: Narodickv.BrewerDecisionSpring2005.rtfEmail This Post!