Decision of the 
ASUC Judicial Council

Narodick  v. Brewer

On this date, the Seventeenth of March, Two Thousand and Five

Majority Opinion by Associate Justice Aidan Ali-Sullivan, with whom 
 Senior Associate Justice Nikhil Cooper, and
Associate Justices Nile Taylor and Amaris White join

	In the case presented before us, the ASUC Judicial Council is asked to interpret the equal voting rights clause of Article I Sec. II of the ASUC Constitution: “All members shall hold equal voting rights in the Association and its subordinate organizations.”
	 We must decide whether education abroad program participants are in fact having their right to participate in ASUC elections violated. The Plaintiff proposes a situation in which any student participating in the EAP program is in fact having their right to vote in effect denied, as there is no other means to place such vote other than in person on the physical campus. By not providing any other provision, be it electronic or paper, students who are not able to present themselves on campus are effectively barred from voting. What the council must decide is whether or not this single voting method meets the requirement of “equal voting rights” as outlined in the ASUC Constitution. 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. We feel that in order for this practice to be deemed unconstitutional, there would have to be some situation or force whereby participating in these programs while a registered student took away ones eligibility to vote. We do not believe any such mechanism is creating this situation. As such, it is the decision of the majority of the Judicial Council, that EAP students are not having their right to vote denied, and as such we find in favor of the Defendant.
	Although our decision will in effect, maintain the current voting system in place by the ASUC, it is the unanimous decision of the council that a great inequity exists whereby having no other means to cast one’s ballot other than in person, creates a situation where students in such study abroad programs will, in all likelihood not be able to participate in ASUC elections. We would like to express our dissatisfaction with this current, outdated system, and express our hope for some such recognition by the ASUC Senate of this issue, and rectification of it to ensure the greatest ease of voting by all registered students in the future.

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

The current system is not actively denying EAP students' right to vote, because as the defense says, they still have the choice to buy a plane ticket and fly back to exercise the right. 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.