BREAKING ***Davis Wins An Injunction Keeping the Two Referendums Off the Ballot*** BREAKING
Mike Davis filed suit, alleging that the descriptions for the two referendums to be voted on this election (the Student Voice lobbying thing, and the GA autonomy thing) contained biased descriptions. Earlier today, he won an injunction almost certainly destined to fuck things up. Here is the language from the Judicial Council decision (click to download), in Davis v. Elections Council and Attorney General:

The Council hereby accepts to hear charges on two counts of violation of Title IV Sect 10.3, regarding the Graduate Assembly referendum vote and the Student Voice referendum vote. Additionally, due to the similarities of the charges, these two cases will be joined into one.

The plaintiff also has requested a Preliminary Injunction against the referendums from appearing on the election ballots, claiming that irreparable harm will be done to the student body if exposed to alleged impartial descriptions. The Judicial Council recognizes that two forms of irreparable harm may be caused. First, if the ballots do include impartial referendum descriptions, student opinion of the initiatives may be permanently tainted. However, if we prevent the referendums from appearing on the ballot, irreparable harm will be done to the Elections Council, who will have to hold a second voting round of some form, which might result in lower voter turnout and additional expenditures. Upon weighing both points, this Council believes the student voter’s untainted opinion and the credibility of an ASUC election to be more important.

Therefore, the Judicial Council hereby issues an injunction preventing the inclusion of both referendum votes on the election ballot until this case can be resolved. This applies to online ballots, provisional paper ballots, and EAP absentee ballots. Any polling stations that are intended to provide provisional paper ballots must be supplied with ballots that meet this condition. The online EAP absentee ballot must be immediately changed, and any old EAP absentee ballots that have already been mailed to the Elections Council may not be counted until this matter is resolved.

(The PatriotBlog beat me to this, so I'm using the same quote they posted already). Like the other Davis case described below, the shit has hit the fan. In this case, the primary remedy for the supporters of this referendum seems to be to seek an online election. After ASUC election voting has finished, they could potentially hold an online election for the referendums, just like we did with the recent Health Care Fee Referendum.

And true to that, I have received word that a backer of the Student Voice referendum will be proposing that very thing at the Senate meeting on Wednesday. This might be the incentive for CalSERVE, longtime opponents of online voting, to join with Student Action in supporting an online election. And once you go black online election, you never go back (so I would hope). As a strong proponent of online voting, holding an online election would be the ideal solution in my mind. Except some very contentious, and vitally important Judicial Council cases in the coming days.

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