ASUO will hold its annual campus-wide election from April 6 at 9 a.m. to April 10 at noon. All currently enrolled students who have paid the incidental fee are eligible to participate to vote in student government leader and initiatives and policy questions on the ballot.

Elections are for the two executive positions and legislative positions, senators and at-large finance committee members.

Campaigning began last Monday, with two slates vying for executive and legislative positions. Debates, which were mandatory for president and vice presidential candidates, were held in the Erb Memorial Union April 1.

A slate is a group of candidates running together under a shared name and campaign strategy. The two slates up for election are UO Student Power and Student United Front. Students may also run without a slate.

UOSP is the slate of current ASUO president Prissila Moreno which won 18 legislative positions in last year’s elections, according to last prior results from the ASUO elections website.

ASUO supports over 200 student organizations and oversees approximately $10 million in I-fee money annually. The primary responsibility of the president and vice president includes leading executive action on the I-fee, understanding the needs and interpreting the climate of all three UO campuses, monitoring key university processes, creating and structuring executive cabinet members and hosting campus-wide events.

Additionally, the ASUO president holds veto power over legislative financial decisions.

University of Oregon Student Power

Presidential Candidate: Quadrian Gill

Vice Presidential Candidate: Amaya Peralta

Quadrian Gill and Amaya Peralta first crossed paths in ASUO last year, where Gill was an intern in the advocacy department while Peralta was serving as secretary of diversity, equity and inclusion. Now, the two are running together with a focus on multiculturalism, campus advocacy and academic services.

Gill is a third-year majoring in planning, public policy and management and sociology. Currently he serves as the ASUO speaker of the legislature, and during his tenure has been involved on the legislative side with current UOSP projects such as the 24-hour library pilot program, advocating for a Latinx Cultural Center on campus and working to reestablish the Oregon Student Association or a similar student lobbying group to bring student voice to state legislature.

“There are things we’ve done this year that have (been) seen to fruition that sup-port things like multiculturalism, like the International Student and Scholar support fund,” Gill said about his work this year in ASUO. “There are some smaller projects that build up to bigger ones… this year, if we’re elected, we can see some of these projects we worked on this year just instantly happen and then set a new vision for the future.”

Peralta is a third-year majoring in sociology and political science and minoring in PPPM. She is currently the ASUO director of advocacy. Peralta has been working directly with current ASUO Vice President Max Jensen to restart OSA, and organized the recent student-led lobby day which advocated for HB 4079, or the ICE notification bill, which has since passed.

“A lot of the things that student power ran on last year people said were impossible. 24-hour libraries is one of those things — and that’s something we were able to do this year,” Peralta said. “Working with UO Student Power, I’ve seen how we can actually use student government to ignite and create change for students.”

The pair described their “big three” projects they’d like to focus on under the umbrella of their three primary issues, which is the opening of a Latinx Cultural Center on campus, returning Erb Memorial Union control to ASUO and bringing back OSA.

Peralta said they also have a large focus on civic engagement, which she has been working on in her current role in the advocacy department. She said that, after working on Lobby Day, that is something the pair would hope to introduce more of next year if elected.

“It was really empowering, and we’ve seen really great impacts of student voices in the legislature,” Peralta said.

Gill and Peralta emphasized their excitement to work directly with the student body if they were elected through direct advocacy for student organizations, continuing to host State of the University events and bridging together students through coalitions of different organizations that can collaborate on issues of interest.

Student United Front

Presidential Candidate: Brendan Randall

Vice Presidential Candidate: Anton Mandrosov

Both students in UO School of Law, Brendan Randall and Anton Mandrosov came together on shared ideas on how to better connect student organizations with their student government and how they could organize to bring student issues to the state level.

Randall is a second-year law student who previously earned an undergraduate degree in political science and global studies with minors in legal studies, global health and German. Their studies in law school have focused on international law, constitutional law and criminal law.

Mandrosov earned a bachelor’s degree in political science at California State University, Northridge before coming to UO’s law school. He focuses his studies on contracts, business law and intellectual property. Before attending law school, he worked as a legal assistant helping people recover from wildfires in California.

With experience working in the Lane County Office of Legal Counsel, Randall said they want to draw on their experience there to create an “internal mechanism” within ASUO to encourage student advocacy at the state and local level by making it more accessible, as well as focus on ensuring students feel supported by their student government in terms of safety.

“Students are really concerned about federal (agent) enforcement action here on campus and to the fullest extent possible, I’m trying to make sure students feel safe and there is a plan and they know that the ASUO will support them,” Randall said.

Randall and Mandrosov emphasized that they want to expand communication between ASUO and student organizations. As president of the UO Law of Intellectual Property student organization, Mandrosov said he has faced difficulty obtaining funding and feeling isolated from other student organizations.

“With all the skill sets at our disposal, so many talented students across so many student orgs, we need to have a means of getting together, of networking, of co-hosting, of pooling resources,” Mandrosov said.

Randall said that if elected they would want to constantly survey the student body and have open communication so that they can keep pushing for student interests if they were to be president.

“The way ASUO communicates just isn’t the right format anymore,” Randall said. “Communications is changing, and that might involve working with professors and students to find what the cutting edge is.”

Randall added that as president they would convene committees in addition to changing ASUO’s communication style to better meet students where they are.

The team highlighted that the core of their slate is monitoring Oregon legislation to track how bills might negatively impact students, how they can get student voices heard in the capitol and potentially work to draft legislation themselves through a committee.