The SGA Student Judiciary has ordered the Senate to reconsider B-04-24, a bill to expand the voting window from 12 hours to 48 hours, according to an opinion delivered Saturday.
The opinion, delivered by Chief Justice Abby Morthland, found that parliamentary procedure was not followed when the Senate considered the bill, which was voted down at Thursday’s Senate meeting.
The judicial appeal, filed by Graduate School Sen. Sam Badger, argued that the bill was inappropriately dismissed. Sen. Cassidy Matwiyoff motioned to immediately consider the bill, and Speaker Jack Rudder then moved to a voice vote. Sen. Rudder then declared that the bill had not passed, even though it had not gone back to pros and cons or gone to a proper vote. 
“Seeing that Speaker Rudder seemed to either mistakenly take a vote on the Bill, itself, instead of the motion on the floor or mistakenly interpret the vote on the motion on the floor to be a vote on the Bill, itself, the Court found that parliamentary procedure was not followed,” the court’s ruling stated.
Eighteen students attended Thursday’s meeting to speak in favor of the bill, citing busy schedules and other concerns about the current voting window.
Multiple senators alleged that Machine influence caused the bill to be voted down.
“I think it’s really obvious from the pro-con speeches that the reason it was shot down was because it’s inconvenient for the Machine to have a longer voting period,” College of Arts and Sciences Sen. Eleanor Israel said after the meeting.
The Senate will now reconsider the bill at its meeting March 7.
