With only 23 candidates running for 30 senate seats in Student Government, the applicants will win the seats due to lack of competition. However, without a rule change, only 18 of the seats would have been filled, failing to meet the requirement for quorum.
Up until now all candidates for Student Government Senate have been required to gather 150 student signatures that also list majors and G-numbers.
“People make mistakes,” said David Bier, a sophomore government major, “because there’s no way to verify as a candidate or potential candidate. You can’t be 100 percent certain that every signature you have is legitimate.”
“When I was running in my freshman year, someone signed Cornelius Fudge and put witchcraft and wizardry as major,” Bier said, highlighting one of the problems with the system as it’s currently configured.
Students gathering signatures to make a bid for a Student Senate seat have no way to verify the legitimacy of G-numbers they receive. Five of the 23 candidates for Student Government Senate and one of the three tickets for the President/Vice President position had problems with signatures.
“For Senate, we gave them a 10-signature leeway,” Bier said. “As long as you have 140 valid signatures, you’re good to go. We did this based on the good faith principle that they’re making the honest attempt.”
Unless major changes are made to the way elections are run, this rule will remain in effect throughout future elections.
“It’s an inherent problem in senate code that the senators get to choose the election rules,” Bier said. “Senators pick the rules in which they get to run.”
The remaining seven seats can not be filled until the next Senate is confirmed. In the first week of May the new Senate will meet and have quorum since they will have at least 21 senators.
An appointment process is in place for anyone who wants to take one of the seven empty seats in Student Government Senate then there is an appointment process.
Applicants are still required to obtain the signature packet and once the signatures are validated, the packet is given to the chairperson of the government and academic affairs committee. That committee votes, and if applicants pass, they then go through a confirmation of the full Senate. If they pass that, they’re appointed as senators.
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