Voting Online: The ASSC Elections

Chloe Trinidad, Staff Writer|April 26, 2020

The new student council was decided Friday for the 2020-2021 school year.

The Associated Students of Skyline College, also known as ASSC, held their elections last week. Candidates submitted their applications to run April 22, and candidate bios were uploaded on their Instagram page. Also this week, students received a ballot in their email to vote.

This will be the first time the ASSC does their entire elections online due to COVID-19 restrictions and shelter-in-place orders. With no physical social connections or direct communication on campus, there are some concerns regarding the election.

“We were so worried about not getting enough people.” Alvin Gubatina, one of the ASSC advisers, said. “When this COVID-19 happened, it changed our plan to promote people. Our plan was to have folks do the regular campaigning, put out a 30-second video on social media, have debates. The election process had to be sped up.”

Holding an election online comes with different obstacles. Normally, the election process is gradual. Candidates would get signatures from peers, attend the meetings, and get to physically promote themselves on campus. Because of COVID-19, candidates no longer needed those signatures, nor were they required to physically campaign.

“We needed that time to do that properly,” Gubatina said. “Letting folks know who these candidates are and who they’re about.”

However, despite these worries and obstacles, they pushed through to a successful election. This year many people applied to all the executive positions, as well as senators; there was no empty spot on this year’s ballot.

“We had someone run for every single Executive Officer position.” Adviser Ryan Samn said. “We had reached the maximum number of senators running. We even had a candidate for the SMCCCD Student trustee nominee to be voted on by the District Student Council should he receive enough votes. The Center for Student Life is extremely pleased at our campus community’s clear effort to step up and promote the election.”

Not getting to connect with people on campus to campaign for oneself might have been a challenge. But with the help of social media, the ASSC Instagram page became a resourceful and vital outlet. The page had posted candidate profiles: It included a photo of the candidate and a description of why they are running.

“I did not necessarily promote myself that much since I am already in council.” Ellaine Arroyo, this upcoming year’s Commissioner of Activities said. “But I promoted the ASSC election itself and encouraged my peers to run for ASSC by spreading the word on social media and also through class announcements.”

“I used social media.” Newly elected senator, Tylin Williams said. “I had posted on my Instagram story to ask my followers to vote for me, Jae and Ellaine.”

The candidates acknowledged the disadvantages of having the elections online. There would have been new experiences for those running for the first time, and they missed that aspect of running while in school.

“I feel that since the campaigning aspect of it had to be reduced to social media, the full experience was lost,” Williams said. “The process was easier in terms of time consumption only.”

“I understand that this time can be challenging since we suddenly changed to doing everything online,” Arroyo said. “The ASSC and I are doing our best to have virtual events and resources to keep the connection and community with all of the students.”

Amid COVID-19, the elections managed to pull through. They have been meeting over the past month via Zoom, working, and planning for these elections. What’s next to come for the newly appointed ASSC will come in the fall.

The ASSC for the 2020-2021 school year are as follows:

Executive Positions

Carlos Ungo as President

Jose Guiterrez as Vice President

Ellaine Arroyo as Commissioner of Activities

Aung Koko Khant as Commissioner of Finance

Fanyu Wang as Commissioner of Publicity

Sarah Tran as Commissioner of Public Records

Senators

Allen Bustos

Ricardo Coronado

Lester Logue