As students begin to fill out their online ASSU election ballots, many think back to the flyers or Web sites they’ve glanced at — and the endorsements that often accompany them.

In an election where many students are apathetic or see little difference between candidates who make similar promises, endorsements can make the difference. But with groups and individuals making private decisions to publicly support candidates and slates, students are largely unaware of the process leading to endorsements, making them confusing and sometimes controversial.

Candidates, current senators and group leaders illuminated the decision-making process in more than a dozen interviews with The Daily this week.

Different groups have different mechanisms for picking candidates. The Stanford Democrats use a questionnaire, followed by an interview. Groups like the Queer Straight Alliance (QSA) are willing to endorse multiple candidates for the same post if they agree with the group on issues of fundamental importance. The Students of Color Coalition (SOCC), like the Democrats, sends out a questionnaire and then holds a rigorous interview, followed by a consensus decision from representatives of the five groups included in the coalition.

Despite the finality of these endorsement decisions, some question the processes and validity of various endorsements. SOCC’s decision to endorse Avula/Jones shines light on the process that unfolds in private every year.

On a campus where diversity is widely embraced, the two front-running slates (Brett and Lakshmi and Avula/Jones) both stressed plans for improving the representation of minorities.

Mondaire Jones ‘09 has been involved with the University’s Black Student Union and the NAACP since he arrived on campus. Both Jones and running mate Hershey Avula ‘08 — who are both ASSU senators — say they have helped to author and promote resolutions in the Senate supporting diversity.

Both Brett Hammon ‘08 and Lakshmi Karra ‘08 have served on class executive committees tasked with improving diversity, and they propose improving relationships between campus and ethnic communities.

In a close election, the SOCC endorsement has historically proven to be valuable to candidates. Last year, 10 of the 13 SOCC-endorsed candidates for Senate went on to win election. Heng with Graham, the winning executive slate, also received the SOCC endorsement.

Hammon told The Daily that the SOCC endorsement is “the big one” because the coalition’s support brings volunteers, a ready-to-use infrastructure and voters who can be easily mobilized. As the two slates struggle to present themselves as having the best plan for diversity, holding the SOCC’s stamp of approval can be crucial and sensitive.

SOCC spokesperson Macarrin Morton ‘07 said the SOCC core committee — which included chairs of the five SOCC-affiliated groups — “didn’t feel that [Brett and Lakshmi] best represented the issues and concerns of the colored community.”

When asked why Avula/Jones received SOCC’s endorsement, Avula claimed his opponents “didn’t show they could get things done on this University with regard to communities and graduate student diversity.”

Avula and Jones were also individually endorsed by SOCC for last year’s senate race.

“We’ve really pushed hard for these initiatives and shown that we care over the past two years,” Avula said. “I think they could see through the fact that individuals were just looking for endorsements to get elected, as opposed to getting endorsements because they care about the community.”

Hammon and Karra said that among the reasons provided for their failed endorsement request was that neither had shown involvement in one of the SOCC-affiliated groups. The duo said that not being tied down into one individual group would allow them to advocate for all students, including women and the LGBT community.

“We thought we did a really good job with our interview and our application because one of the reasons we’re running is because we’re passionate about advocating for communities of color,” Hammon said. “We respect SOCC and we respect their decision, but we also respectfully disagree with the decision because if we didn’t think we were going to do a better job advocating for students, we wouldn’t be running.”

Hammon and Karra also noted that, since failing to receive the SOCC endorsement, they have individually met with all five SOCC-covered groups: the Black Student Union (BSU), Muslim Student Awareness Network (MSAN), Stanford American Indian Organization (SAIO), Asian American Students Association (AASA) and Movimiento Estudiantil Chicano de Aztlan (MEChA).

Within the affiliated communities, however, support for Avula/Jones is not unanimous. Charlton Gholson ‘08 is an African-American supporter of Brett and Lakshmi. A message sent last Friday to the Diapsora, an email list for the black community, listed SOCC endorsements such as that for Avula/Jones. In a response to the email, Gholson reminded list members of the opposing slate’s platform, including its commitment to diversity.

“I would think that Brett and Lakshmi deserve a SOCC endorsement,” Gholson said. “I think, based on my knowledge of how they have previously advocated for diversity in their limited capacity in the ASSU, they have established that they advocate for diversity quite well.”

Gholson was immediately unsubscribed from the Diaspora. List owners cited an election rule which requires a sender to get permission from a list owner before sending campaign-related emails. After Gholson’s removal, several emails were sent to the list endorsing Avula/Jones.

Still, Gholson has continued to support Brett and Lakshmi, flyering and wearing their T-shirt. He’s not a member of the BSU, but he says there are no “hard feelings” toward SOCC and its decision to endorse Avula/Jones.

But Gholson told The Daily that he feels the endorsement of Avula/Jones misrepresents the differences in the ethnic communities within and outside SOCC’s apparatus.

“I do think that SOCC represents all students of color at Stanford,” Gholson said. “I mean, it’s called the ‘Students of Color Coalition’ — and even though it is the union of [the five groups], I do think SOCC has to take account of things that go on outside of those five groups. I do feel that they [should] represent what I think as a student of color, even though I’m not a literal member of the BSU.”

Morton, Jones and Avula did not return repeated telephone calls and emails over the last two days seeking comment.

Hammon echoed Gholson’s statement, citing the limited reach of the SOCC core that made the decision.

“When SOCC makes a decision,” he said, “they don’t get all 3,000 students of color in the undergraduate community to be at the interview — it’s just those 10 people [on the core committee].”

Avula and Jones defended the SOCC process, however, calling it “very thorough” in its evaluation of the candidates’ ability to represent the colored community.

“Clearly we exhibited the most professionalism, and our platform is more researched, and we’re more qualified,” Avula said, “and I think that’s obviously why we received those endorsements.”

Avula said that sometimes people wrongly assume that SOCC is only interested in supporting minority candidates.

“SOCC receives a lot of criticism because they’re made up of ethnic groups and a lot of people, very racistly, will think you only got the endorsement because you’re of that ethnic background,” Avula said.

Concerns like these, however, have called into question the very meaning of an endorsement itself. With varying processes and ideas for endorsement, the word seems flexible to the student group and situation.

Jones defined an endorsement as meaning “that we support those communities and that we have an interest in those communities — not that we support everything they stand for.”

Hammon and Karra said they believe that endorsements show an interest in their supporters’ constituents and their issues, as well as a willingness to work together. According to them, endorsements don’t take the place of the rest of a candidate’s platform or campaign.

“It’s not like we can sit back and our campaign is set,” Karra said. “We have to work just as hard. They’re not a shortcut by any means.”

But with groups that seem to have litmus tests for endorsements, such as QSA’s emphasis that their candidates should support non-gender-based housing, it can be difficult for students to look beyond endorsements without the guidance of those providing them.

Current senator Danny Arbeiter ‘08 received endorsements from the Stanford Democrats and Republicans in his freshman-year campaign. Now in his second term, Arbeiter said that endorsements can be effective, but “for them to be credible, they should come with some sort of qualifications attached” — qualifications, he said, that give specific reasoning for an endorsement.

“An endorsement would be bad when you trust it blindly,” Arbeiter added.

Bobby Lepore ‘07, the president of the Stanford Democrats, said his group wanted to make the process transparent, at the same time conveying “information to students about how candidates really work, behind whatever’s just on their flyers in the bathroom.”

Gholson said that even if endorsements are understood, they can still present a “false dichotomy” between candidates.

“Endorsements often give the message to voters that — in the case of SOCC — one candidate is for diversity and the other isn’t,” Gholson said.

Lepore and the Stanford Democrats avoided such problems by endorsing neither executive slate that applied. With a two-thirds majority required for approval, and both slates and their platforms appearing indistinguishable, the Democrats declined to weigh in. With that said, Lepore added, “people should read into our failure to endorse a candidate as a statement of the strength of both slates.”

In contrast, Morton said that the SOCC does not endorse more than one candidate (or neither) because it “defeats the purpose of helping the community in its decision.” SOCC leaders considered its endorsed candidates the most qualified, experienced and interested in the issues.

In the end, though, Arbeiter said it comes down to a judgment call by each voter, both of the endorsement itself and the rest of a candidate’s campaign — their platform and experience.

“I encourage every voter to educate themselves to the greatest extent possible,” Arbeiter said. “I think endorsements should be more like guidelines than strict rules, per se.”

“You’re never going to find the perfect candidate for every student group,” he added, “nor the perfect endorsement for every student who looks at them.”