The ASUO Elections Board was finally filled Wednesday night as the Student Senate approved all four candidates selected by Elections Coordinator Shantell Rice.
Bringing together a variety of experiences, Rice managed to fill the board with several members who have had previous ASUO experience — an especially important fact as the board must now jump into the middle of an elections process already under way.
The senate approved former ASUO state affairs coordinator Matt Swanson to the elections board office manager position.
“I kind of know the lay of the land … I’ve been through a few elections,” Swanson told the senate. “I know the most important thing we can do is run an open and fair elections process.”
Political science major and former senator Emily Sedgwick is now elections manager.
“I thought student government was probably the most valuable thing I did in college,” Sedgwick said. “I want to make that true for many more people.”
Stephanie Chaney, a senior public relations major, assumed the publicity coordinator position. Chaney, who works in the Cultural Forum and has also worked in the Executive office, said she wants to help students know what is happening on campus.
“I’d just like to be part of the team,” she said.
The final confirmation happened without the nominee in attendance. The only person to apply for the voter educator position was business administration major Kelly Murphy, who also happened to have class while the senate was in session.
Senate rules dictate that candidates must be present at their confirmation hearings, but Rice said the senate had to approve Murphy that night or she would have to find someone else.
Temporarily freezing parliamentary procedure — with Sens. Greg Zimel and C.J. Gabbe speaking in favor of the candidate — the senate confirmed Murphy to the position.
Continuing with a request left over from the last meeting, the senate approved a $900 transfer for the Returning Students Association.
At issue was the RSA’s request to use $900 from one of its co-directors’ stipends to pay for two other positions instead.
Last year the senate passed a new stipend model and agreed with the Programs Finance Committee that no new stipend positions would be created.
The two positions the RSA wanted to fund did not already receive stipends.
Senate President Peter Watts argued that there was no way around it: By approving the request, the senate was creating two new stipend positions.
But most of the other senators seemed to believe the RSA’s was a one-time special case, and they passed the request despite the agreement.
The senate also approved several large special requests, and by the end of the night had granted nearly $17,000 out of the general surplus to three student groups.
The first and largest request was from the Student Bar Association, which asked for $9,223 to help initiate a yearbook for third-year law students — a tradition that the group said it hoped would continue in coming years.
Because there were questions about whether SBA could receive $1,500 from another source, the senate decided to decrease the number to $7,733.
The next largest request to come out of surplus was $5,250 the senate granted the Coalition Against Environmental Racism to help fund its Environmental Justice conference.
And finally, the senate gave the Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual and Transgender Alliance $4,000 to help pay for the costs of the group’s March event, Lesbopalooza.
In different business, Watts admitted to the senate that he had broken several rules late fall term when dealing with a loan for the Black Student Union. Apologizing for his mistakes, which eventually led to frozen funds for the BSU, Watts said he felt like he had let the senate down.
The senators, however, did not reprimand Watts, and the body quickly rectified the problem by approving a $234 transfer for the BSU.