Graduate student gets voice heard in ASU politics

Putting his legal skills to work, Arizona State University law student Jeremy Lee pushed a runoff election in his bid to be president of a graduate student group.

Lee is running for graduate president of the ASU Online Student Government Advocacy Group. With an aunt and uncle living in the Villages, he has received support and even financial backing from Maricopa leaders during his educational adventure.

He received his bachelor’s degree in organizational leadership. With Maricopa support, he fulfilled an internship at George Mason University near Washington, D.C. He returned to ASU to study law.

He said he has always been interested in leadership and politics, and he saw that some changes needed to be made in the online student programs at ASU. That led him to run for an executive position.

Voting, which was Monday, was all online. Lee felt the campaign process was not working well and the voting process was questionable. So, when he seemed to lose by 12 votes, he asked those questions.

“From the start, they just weren’t warning me on certain events and what to prepare myself for and not giving me the necessary information that is in the rulebook,” Lee said. “So, I went to the rulebook, and I’m like, ‘None of this is fair.’ I just feel like the site messed up, because I had people come to me and say they couldn’t vote.”

Online Student Government agreed some races were too close to call and arranged a runoff election to take place Saturday. Ahead of time, Friday at 5 p.m., there will be a candidate debate on Facebook between Lee and Emily Moore.

“We think it’s a miracle,” said Marc Montgomery, a Lee booster and self-described campaign manager and former Maricopan. “ASU made a good decision to give a runoff, because it seemed unfair. They’re having system issues as well because they don’t know the online capacity or how many kids are deciding to go online.”

Lee said he is running to be able to put together better scholarships for online students, have professors update their lectures and initiate an update in the Canvas learning management platform that is in use for online students.

“I actually always wanted to be in law, but I never thought I would do it,” he said. “I just picked up the love for it because at my old school where I played football, Eastern Arizona College, I started a nonpartisan club. From there, I met a lot of officials and it really encouraged me to get involved.”

At Eastern Arizona College, he was elected student vice president and had an internship under Graham County Superior Court Judge Michael Peterson. He has been involved with the Maricopa-based intervention nonprofit The Streets Don’t Love You Back.

“He’s on his way,” Montgomery said. “He knows what he’s doing.”