An Illinois Student Senate resolution intended to amend the rules for nickname use in student elections is receiving conflicted comment from both internal and external parties.

The resolution, proposed by Matt Hill, freshman in LAS and deputy chief of staff and clerk of ISS, called for the Urbana-Champaign Senate to amend nickname rules for student candidates. Further, candidates will only be able to run on the ballot using their full or shortened legal name, the romanized version of their legal name if it’s of international origin, or an alternate name if their legal name conflicts with their gender identity. The resolution ensures that no candidate can use a nickname that may prove advantageous in the polls, even if it is a nickname they’re commonly known by, Hill said.

“There are a lot of public comments on it and I want to address their concerns,” Hill said. “They are legitimate concerns and I have answers for them. I have spent lots of time researching the effect of nicknames on student elections.”

Several speakers during public comment refuted Hill’s motives behind the resolution, pointing to the clerk’s recent loss in the election for LAS senator.

Charles Durst, a student present at the meeting, said the resolution calls running with a nickname an “obvious advantage,” but he said there was no research in it. 

“I didn’t just lose the election and be like I’m going to write a resolution to change the rules, that was not my intention,” Hill said. “There was 15 candidates, three of those candidates used nicknames, and all three were elected. Losing the election made me realize that candidates with nicknames do have an advantage so I looked into election results from previous years up until 2002 and candidates who use nicknames do have an advantage in elections and overall I think that’s unfair.”

The research Hill has conducted includes looking at the Campus Student Election Commission’s website and going through old archives of files that include vote totals from previous student elections. After examining the data, Hill noticed that whenever a candidate used a facetious nickname they always won.

The claim raised by Hill, which addresses the use of flamboyant or comical nicknames as an aid for candidates, received heavy public comment.

Dominique “Modaddy” Johnson, senator-elect, said that this is not a sincere resolution and it is up to the CSEC to deem nicknames valid.

The resolution was referred to the Committee on Internal Affairs and will be given a recommendation at its next meeting Sunday. It will be voted on by the full senate next Wednesday.

If the resolution passes the Illinois Student Senate it will then be sent to the Urbana-Champaign Senate’s Committee on University Statutes and Senate Procedures. 

Liz can be reached at [email protected].

Editor’s note: A previous version of this article incorrectly stated that Dominique Johnson is a senator and that the Committee on Internal Affairs will meet Saturday. Johnson is a senator-elect and the committee will meet Sunday. The Daily Illini regrets this error.