Revcomm Rulings

ASCIT Review Committee

For the rulings of RevComm's Predecessor, the ASCIT Executive Committee: ASCIT ExComm Rulings (1958-2009)

RevComm Rulings

2009.1 (Original Text Unavailable, see the January 28 BoD Minutes) "the Review Committee was unanimous in confirming Caleb as the current president, Will as the VP of Academic Affairs, Chris as the VP of Nonacademic Affairs, and Czub as the Operations Directors. The Honor Chair, FDAL, UDAL, and all presidential staff are otherwise relieved. Any new appointments for staff will need to be approved by the Review Committee."

2009.2 (Original Text Unavailable) "The Review Committee decided to throw out the election results for Vice President [after the position was abolished by an amendment in the same election]. The results for President will stand."

2009.3 (Original Text Unavailable) "Review Committee alright with Joel staying as [ASCIT] secretary [after the position became an appointed position by amendment]."

2014.1 The Chair of the Review Committee does not get a vote on Review Committee rulings

2014.4 Candidates for office are not allowed to see the results of elections before the results are announced to the public

2014.5 Only the rulings of the review committee regarding the ASCIT bylaws and resolutions need to be published on DONUT and the Little t.

2014.6 Houses can elect multiple ESC reps as long as there is only 1 vote in the ESC per house.

2014.7 The newly elected ascit bod cannot appoint officers until the new ascit bod is installed

2014.8 The at large boc reps shall be appointed before the end of second term by the newly elected (but not necessarily instated) Boc chair and Boc secretaries.

2014.9 Teams of 1 person may run for Tech Editor

2014.10 RevComm meetings in which a vote is not taking place may be held over email.

2015.1 If a tie occurs in an election, a protest is automatically put on file with the review committee

2015.3 The words “In such circumstance that the ASCIT Vice President of Academic Affairs should be incapacitated or otherwise unable to perform the duties of the ASCIT Vice President of Academic Affairs, the ARC Secretary shall serve as the acting ASCIT Vice President of Academic Affairs until such time as the ASCIT Vice President of Academic Affairs returns to duty or an election to fill the vacancy in the office of the ASCIT Vice President of Academic Affairs occurs.” in Article III Section 2 of the ARC Bylaws are in conflict with the ASCIT Bylaws and, as such, are null and void.

2016.1 RevComm meetings in which a vote is taking place may be held over email if the meeting must occur during the midterm or final examination period.

2016.2 The clause in Article VII, Section 10 which states "If an officer for any reason finds he will be unable to perform his duties for five consecutive weeks…" shall be interpreted to mean that the officer must petition immediately after becoming aware that his absence will occur; he may not wait until a later time to address it with the committee.

2016.3 If an officer finds he is unable to complete the duties of office or is removed form his office immediately following an appointment or election (for example, if he becomes ineligible to hold office during the vote-counting period) the votes shall be counted as they would have without the ineligibility, provided he was eligible to hold office at the time of voting. If a vacancy occurs as a result of this, and RevComm appoints an acting officer, RevComm considers the original nominations sign-up sheet from the preceding election to satisfy the requirements of Article VII, Section 11 which requires that all appointed positions have open nominations for at least three days.

2016.4 The Honor Code Handbook and the ASCIT Bylaws are in conflict regarding the composition of the CRC. The Handbook lists two at-large appointed reps, in addition to the co-chair and eight House reps. The Bylaws list the off-campus elected rep in addition to the co-chair and House reps. The two are in conflict; as such, the CRC may include BOTH the off-campus rep and the two at-large appointed reps.

2016.5 Article VII, Section 12 part (a) shall be interpreted to only apply to elections in which one winner is selected. This is based on the wording, "In votes requiring a simple majority", since elections with multiple winners (such as BoC Secretary) must be conducted with a plural majority. This shall be defined as the fraction of votes equal to 1/(n+1) where n is the number of winners to be selected. Thus, in a two-winner election, each candidate must achieve 1/3 of the vote. In other words, each candidate must achieve a number of votes such that no other combination of candidates, write-ins, or "NO" votes can beat that candidate.

2019.1 In the Bylaws, Article IX Section 2, “adopt” shall mean to create an internal budget for expenditures that is complete and accurate, and to publish that budget on Donut. The publicly available budget should be updated in a timely fashion as the expenditures budget changes, and it should make clear the date at which the published budget was accurate.

2019.2 In the Corporation Bylaws Article XI Section 1. “All members of the Corporation shall be entitled to: … (c) One subscription to all Corporation publications.” shall be interpreted as meaning that the California Tech, the Big T, the little t and Totem must make a printed copy available to any corporation member who wishes to obtain one but not necessarily to order or print as many printed copies as there are corporation members.

2019.3 In Bylaws Article IV Section 4, “Staff positions” shall be interpreted as meaning positions which exist to assist BoD members in their duties. As such, Resolutions I, III, and VIII do not create BoD-associated staff positions. Resolutions II and XIII create staff positions and have expired, effective the date of the installation of the current Board. In order to create the same or similar staff positions, if the Board wishes to, it must pass new resolutions and submit them for approval to the Review Committee.

2019.4 The online form in elections may contain questions in addition to the ballots; these questions shall not affect whether any of the ballots on the form are counted unless they are directly relevant to eligibility (ie, asking if the voter is an ASCIT member, or voted in a House election for BoC rep, etc.). If a question affects whether a ballot will be counted it must explicitly say so, and if it does not it must also explicitly say so. Qualifications for voting shall be only those explicitly mentioned in the by-laws.

2019.5 Following the amendment to Article XIII in June 2019, the position of off-campus BoC representative (old Article XIII, section 2) is removed and position of unaffiliated member (new Article XIII, Section 2 (a)) is added. It appears to be the clear legislative intent for the latter position to replace the former, with the explanation attached to the text of the amendment noting that the amendment would ‘make several clarifications, such as…renaming the "off-campus" rep to the "unaffiliated" rep.’ The incumbent off-campus representative automatically becomes the unaffiliated representative by virtue of the offices being significantly similar.

2019.6 RevComm deferred the appointment of acting California Tech Editors to an election on 1 December 2019. The by-laws prescribe that the elections "occur the second Monday following the closing of nominations for that office", which in this case would be during winter break. Therefore the election is rescheduled for Monday, 13th January 2019.

2019.7 The ASCIT bylaws repeatedly make a distinction between undergraduates who are members of ASCIT and undergraduates who are not. In Article VII, Section 4 reads "All registered undergraduates may vote for the Board of Control Chairman, the Board of Control Secretary, the Interhouse Committee Chairman, and the Conduct Review Committee Student Chairman. Only members of the Corporation may vote for other elected officers." Article XV, Section 2 reads "No Bylaw amendment concerning the Board of Control or the Conduct Review Committee shall be made by any vote restricted to Corporation members. Such amendments may be proposed by submission to the Board of Directors of the proposed amendment signed by twenty percent (20%) of the registered undergraduate students. The President shall then put the amendment to a vote open to all registered undergraduates within fifteen (15) days after the submission of the amendment." Both of the above excerpts clearly state that there are undergraduates who are not ASCIT members. This strongly implies that students can drop their ASCIT membership.

The bylaws also state in Article IX, Section 1 that "Dues for each term shall be non-refundable after add day of said term.", implying that those dues should be refundable before add day.

Additionally, the bylaws in Article IX, section 5, state that "a member who does not wish to receive a copy may, upon written request to the Business Manager of the Big T, receive a refund of any installments paid toward that year's book". Thus, ASCIT should be capable of issuing refunds to students.

In accordance with the above, the Review Committee rules that the ASCIT Board of Directors must create an accessible mechanism by which an undergraduate student may drop their ASCIT membership and receive a refund for ASCIT dues before Add Day of the relevant term.

2020.1 The complaint alleges that “the question was inappropriate and it's presented suppressed (sic) turnout.” This is baseless conjecture. Per RevComm ruling 2019.4 questions on voting eligibility are allowed and can be used to invalidate ballots submitted by ineligible voters. The complaint also claims that anyone who paid dues this term is still an ASCIT member unless they receive a refund on dues. If this were true, it would mean that the 13 voters who marked they were not an ASCIT member on the survey form were mistaken and thus that their votes should be counted. Article 1 section 2 reads in part “students can resign from ASCIT membership with a written statement to the President at any time.” This indicates that resignation of corporation membership is effective immediately upon receipt of such a statement by the president. The complaint finally implies that ruling 2019.7 “that fee refund is a necessary condition for membership dropping.” However, the text of the recently added Article 1 section 2 supersedes any such interpretation of when membership ceases, but does not affect any claims of entitlement to refunds. The complaint thus will not be considered in interpreting the election and any ballots for Tech Editors or Amendment 1 for which a voter marked that they were not an ASCIT member will be invalidated.

2020.2 Article XIII, Section 4 (d) (i) (5), reads "[The BoC] Arranges for Respondent to review the relevant evidence in person and take notes, with a BoC member present.” Under the present circumstances, with the closure of the undergraduate Houses and Caltech’s move to online instruction for the Spring 2020 term due to the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic, the above section of the bylaws will be satisfied by the distribution of watermarked evidence to the Respondent using a secure online file sharing service. This ruling will hold for as long as Caltech continues online instruction and the undergraduate Houses remain closed. Upon the reopening of the undergraduate Houses and the return to in-person instruction at Caltech, this ruling will no longer apply.

2020.3 Due to the exceptional circumstances presented by the COVID-19 pandemic, Caltech’s closure of the undergraduate Houses, and the move to online instruction for the Spring 2020 term, the Review Committee finds that the elections scheduled for April 20th, 2020 for the offices of ASCIT President, ASCIT Vice President for Academic Affairs, ASCIT Director of Operations, ASCIT Treasurer, and ASCIT Director of Social Activities are unfair to students. Accordingly, under Article VII, Section 7, the Committee finds these elections invalid and reschedules them to October 12. Signups for these elections will be opened on the Monday prior to the end of Rotation (September 28th) and closed the following Friday (October 2). Consequently, appointments made by the Board of Directors under article VII section 11, the adoption of a budget required by Article IX section 2 and Article IV section 2 (a), and the expiration of resolutions concerning staff positions given in Article IV section 4 are delayed until the new Board of Directors is installed following the election.

2020.4 Clarifying the earlier Revcomm ruling (2020.3), the Committee has found the following:

The ASCIT elections which have been delayed to first term 2020 are a rescheduling of elections that should have occurred on 4/20/2020. Both the electorate and the pool of eligible candidates for this election will remain the same. Eligible voters and candidates for office must have been ASCIT members as of 4/20/2020.

Installation for the elected general offices of the Corporation for which elections have been delayed shall happen one week after the election.

2020.5 Due to an error in creating the election ballot form, the ballot for the CRC Co-chair Special Election on November 16, 2020 did not meet requirements stated in Article VII Section 5 (b). Therefore, the committee finds the election results from November 16, 2020 invalid and reschedules the election to November 20, 2020.

2021.1 The Review Committee reviewed the complaint “The BoD amended Resolution I without requesting RevComm approval to add a provision that ‘Candidates running for Senior Class co-presidents must be in groups of no more than 2 people.’ … The Bylaws Article 4 section 5 say ‘Resolutions concerning the formation of a committee or office shall require the approval of the Review Committee.’ Clearly, Resolution I creates the office of Senior Presidents. The bylaws do not explicitly say this but I believe it's implied that any amendments to Resolutions like Resolution I also require RevComm approval… ”

Revcomm ruled this complaint valid. In the absence of an amendment procedure in the bylaws for resolutions concerning the formation of a committee or office, Revcomm ruled that amendments should be treated as resolutions. Revcomm thus requests that the BoD send Resolution 1 Section 4 to Revcomm for approval. Furthermore, the Revcomm recommends that the BoD proposes an amendment to the bylaws to clarify the amendment procedure of BoD resolutions and specify whether amendments to resolutions concerning the formation of a committee or office require Revcomm approval in the future.

2021.2 The Review Committee reviewed the complaints: "

  1. The BoD proposing Amendment 4 during third term violates RESOLUTION VII - DUES AND ASSESSMENT ADJUSTMENTS section 2 which says “The Board of Directors shall not pass adjustments in dues or assessments during third term in consideration of Caltech offices that require time to update their records to reflect the changes.” Amendment 4 makes an adjustment to ASCIT dues (changes them from exactly $30/term to at least $30/term) and therefore the BoD cannot propose it during third term. It doesn’t matter whether Caltech actually needs to update records in this case; the operative clause in this section is “The Board of Directors shall not pass adjustments in dues or assessments during third term,” and therefore the BoD cannot propose this amendment. The remaining part “in consideration of Caltech offices that require ….” is just a prefatory clause. I ask that RevComm rule that the BoD’s proposal of this amendment was not valid.

  2. Here I ask that RevComm interpret how Amendment 4 would be used going forward if it passes (or if you disagree with or dismiss the complaint above). Amendment 4 says “…The exact amount [of dues] will be considered through negotiations between the Corporation and Caltech through annual review.” How would these negotiations work on the student side? Who would have to approve the amount? My view is that RevComm should rule that “negotiations between the Corporation and Caltech” implies that the corporation (as in, the student body* as a whole) should have to approve the amount for dues whenever any changes are made by a campus-wide vote. So for example, if one year the BoD and Caltech agreed to have dues raised to $40/term, the student body would have to approve it. The term “corporation” is used in the bylaws to mean the student body (incorporated as legal entity as ASCIT), as in “The Honor Code shall be the fundamental principle of conduct of all members of the Corporation in article II” "

The Review Committee decided to reject Amendment 4 in a 5-0-0 vote. The text of the changes proposed did not clarify when and how the approval of the entire student body will be taken as required by Resolution VII. This amendment, if included, would supersede the requirement of obtaining “student body approval”. We ask the amendment to be restructured and proposed again, with clarity if and how “negotiations between the Corporation and Caltech” would rely on a vote from the student body.

2021.3 In response to the complaint "The summary of Amendment 6 was incomplete. It said amendment 6 would “Clarify that elected officers cannot be paid for doing their job as part of their elected positions.” However, while most officers aren’t paid, the Tech editors are! I think it’s perfectly fair to have a debate about whether the Tech editors are paid but students had no idea they were voting on that here. So this amendment wasn’t simply clarifying existing practices but making a substantial change.",

The Review Committee decided to wait to certify the passage of Amendment 6 till we obtain more information about whether editors of The California Tech have been paid a salary in the past, and, if yes, then whether the summary of the Amendment was clear enough about making a substantive change.

2021.4 In response to the protest “I think the voting period is a bit too short, and I'm worried not all voices will be heard. Apologies if this is outside of RevComm jurisdiction.” for the election of the senior co-presidents, RevComm ruled in a 5-0-0 vote that this protest is not valid. The duration of the voting period was as defined in the Bylaws Article VII: Section 3.

2021.5 The Review Committee decided to reject Amendment 6 in a 5-0-0 vote. The summary of changes was not clear enough about making a substantive change that would include forbidding the editors of The California Tech from being paid a salary.