Associated Students of Madison today finds itself at a crossroads and neither avenue before the student government seems all too appealing. Spring elections have ended and a flurry of surprises is emerging from voting results. At least one winner is actually ineligible for the office to which they have been voted. Another write-in candidate may have received votes thanks to misappropriated student funds (and he played no role in the campaign, further complicating matters in a twist that could only be borne of an ASM election). And sources tell the Badger Herald at least one candidate for student government coercively obtained votes by hovering over people’s shoulders as they completed online ballots.

But for ASM, the trouble doesn’t stop with the spring elections. Recent reports reveal a senior member of the student government to have been serving throughout the semester despite having never actually been a student. To boot, questions now abound about various salary payments and at least one reimbursement issued to him during his illegitimate term in office.

Indeed, the ASM we have come to know and (love?) is now at a fork in the road seemingly out of a Robert Frost poem. Much of the student government’s rank-and-file spenders have been either displaced or sent a stark message from a series of Robin Hood slate candidates who have stormed into victory thanks to campaign promises of financial responsibility. To whatever extent the student body spoke through these elections, the message sent was clearly one of discontent with the status quo.

We encourage all of those newly elected to ASM to bear this in mind as they assume office. The hypocrisy of campaigning for lower tuition and yet ballooning the rate of segregated fees has gone on too long. ASM’s financial and social irresponsibility has become an outright embarrassment for the University of Wisconsin community. And representatives’ seemingly total isolation from the student body has become a point of rampant apathy.

ASM must first clean house. The aforementioned series of issues needs to be resolved in a tidy and expedient manner. But only then will the student government’s work truly begin. Seg fees must be kept in check. ASM’s fruitless social activism must be curtailed — the illusion of UW having a serious effect on national and international policy through “accountability session” games has become laughable. And relations with the student body — not just fellow members of the student government — must be restored.

The crossroads are gloomy but we firmly believe with a precise compass and detailed map, the light over the horizon may be found. The mandate is clear — now it’s time to get out of the woods.