ASUO Elections Coordinator William Price made a short presentation to roughly 30 current representatives and soon-to-be candidates Monday night, stating the elections board’s responsibilities for 2011 ASUO candidates.
Price went into some basic details, such as deadlines for filing, dates for the primary and general elections, and instances in which sanctions would rise and how the elections board deals with them.
In years past, a significant number of grievances were filed against candidates in the lead-up to and during elections activities. Price said he hopes that is not the case this year, and he expressed interest in more conversations with potential candidates to prevent that.
“If something is happening that is in violation of a rule, we won’t sit back and wait for a grievance to come in,” Price said. “We will be talking to you, communicating with you more to try to avoid these problems, so they don’t turn into big, nasty blowups, because as students we don’t want that either.”
The only issue that was brought up at the meeting was concerning the times that DuckWeb would be open for voting. According to the presentation Price made, students would only be able to vote from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. each day from Monday, March 28, to Thursday, March 31.
Traditionally, ASUO Chief of Staff Ben Eckstein said, the voting is open from 9 a.m. on the first day until 5 p.m. on the last day and the voting remained open the whole time. Former ASUO Political Director Robert D’Andrea was upset by the announcement.
“That’s ridiculous; that’s a major change. Yeah, that is not OK. It’s been for Monday at 9 to Thursday at 5 and you can vote at 2 in the morning,” D’Andrea said. “There’s no reason why you shouldn’t be able to. It’s a website.”
Price said he would look into a possible misreading.
After Price made a short explanation of the eligibility requirements and contact information for the elections board, in the first few minutes of the meeting, ASUO President Amelie Rousseau encouraged students to run for office if interested at all.
“If you’re thinking about it, how much you get out of, win or lose, putting yourself out there; how much it changes you for the better … even your closest friends just don’t really understand; that’s really what leadership is,” Rousseau said. “You know what you want to get done … you’ll never win if you don’t put yourself on the ballot.”
Freshly minted ASUO Senate Freshman Rep. Christian Erichsen said he planned to run for Senate Seat 11, which represents students with undeclared majors.
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ASUO election coordinator explains election details, responsibilities to prospective candidates
Daily Emerald
February 21, 2011
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