In an attempt to buck the recent trend of too few voters and too many grievances against candidates, the voting period for this year’s student election will be longer than previous years, said Shantell Rice, ASUO elections coordinator.
This year’s primary election will span almost an entire week, from Feb. 26 to March 1, and the general election will run from March 5 to March 8, in an attempt to boost last year’s scarce 10 percent voter turnout.
Like last year, voting will take place entirely via computer on Duck Web.
Although Rice is still running the early stage of the election organization alone, she said it has helped to settle small paperwork matters before she compiles her election board.
Rice hopes to bring four board appointees to the Student Senate on Wednesday night for confirmation, and then the board can get down to business.
But students with their eyes on a desk in the Executive office or a seat on the Student Senate or other campus committees can file for candidacy now. Packets are available in the Executive office in the EMU Breezeway.
Rice hopes that a media blitz will help increase the number of candidates too. Last year, a handful of candidates ran uncontested, and some seats were completely unfilled.
As the number of candidates rise, the chance of grievances could increase as well. ASUO President Jay Breslow and Vice President Holly Magner beat hopefuls C.J. Gabbe and Peter Larson last winter after Gabbe and Larson’s campaign became bogged down by countless grievances.
The pair hosted an International Coffee Hour, for which they paid for the refreshments and provided potential voters with materials about their campaign. Student Sen. Jennifer Greenough claimed they violated elections rules by offering a “thing of value” with the campaign fliers, and the decision whether to remove Gabbe and Larson from the ballot eventually went to the ASUO Constitution Court.
The pair were allowed to remain on the ballot but were defeated soundly by Breslow and Magner.
Rice said she hopes that to help avoid a repeat from last year, candidates will communicate better among each other and with the elections board.
Rice said the board members she hopes to hire won’t be afraid to confront candidates and hold them strictly to the rules.
“The people we’re looking at aren’t afraid to call somebody when they do something wrong,” she said.
Students can also begin writing ballot measures now. The deadline to file a ballot measure by initiative is Jan. 31, and all wording has to be approved by the Constitution Court to be clear and free of bias.
Rob Raschio, Constitution Court chief justice, said he hopes people will not wait until the last minute to file measures so the court has enough time for review and to give suggestions to the authors.
The Executive usually places a handful of measures on the ballot as well. Breslow said he currently isn’t sure whether he and Magner will write any measures, or if so, what they will detail, but he realizes the deadline is approaching.
“We’re going to have to do it pretty soon,” he said.
One measure for certain on the ballot will be funding for OSPIRG, which goes to the ballot every two years for incidental fee funding.