With spring term just around the corner, the ASUO election season will soon be upon us. Deadlines to run for office are coming up: Applications to run as a candidate in any ASUO election are due by March 13. But in order to file for candidacy, students must meet the criteria to be a member of ASUO.
“To be an ASUO member, you must be a half-time enrolled student, graduate or undergraduate, you must have [paid] the incidental fee in that current term and you have to go to UO,” Becky Girvan, director of ASUO, said.
There are 38 available positions in the upcoming ASUO elections, including financial and academic senators, financial committee members and the ASUO president and vice president.
According to Girvan, the president is the only position within the executive branch that is elected, and the candidates are able to choose whether their vice presidents are on the ballot with them or appointed after they take office on May 25.
After being elected, a president is tasked with setting forth a Fulfilment of Duties document outlining what they intend to focus on during their term. This document is due within the first month after they take office.
Senators are split into two different types: finance senators and academic senators. Both finance and academic senators fulfill general tasks outlined in the ASUO constitution, such as holding office hours and attending senatorial meetings. Students can decide which kind of senate seat they would want to run for.
Outside of the general requirements, finance senators serve on one of the four ASUO finance committees: the Athletic and Contracts Finance Committee, Erb Memorial Union Board, Department Finance Committee and the Programs Finance Committee. A finance senator’s job after being elected includes going to the respective finance committee meetings and being available to the constituents in which they fund.
An academic senator’s duties revolve around the major in which they run to represent. The only extra requirement before a candidate can run for an academic senator position is that they are enrolled in the major they are running to represent. For instance, a journalism major can only run for the School of Journalism and Communication senate seat.
Finance committee members are elected to the individual committees and do not serve as student senators. According to Girvan, the committee members have similar jobs to the finance senators, except they only serve the committee they are elected to, not the senate.
On Friday, the rules for the 2020 ASUO elections were approved by the ASUO constitutional court. Zack Johnson, the appointed ASUO elections coordinator, drafted the election rules in order to reform some of the issues within the previous election rules.
“Many of the changes made were minor and related to structural and grammatical elements within the document,” Johnson said. “However, more substantial changes involve campaign finance regulation, release of donor information, and signatures required to run.”
This year, the identities of all donors will be disclosed to the public. “The onus then is shifted to individual candidates and campaigns to run efficient and transparent donation collection processes,” Johnson said. “If candidates cannot follow the rules, in this case letting every single donator know that their information will be disclosed to the public if they choose to donate, they will be issued sanctions or potentially disqualified,”
Last year, the Emerald asked Lane County District Attorney Patricia Perlow to reveal the names of student donors to ASUO campaigns, but Perlow said that the donation records were protected under FERPA.
On March 16, the sample ballot will be available for candidate-hopefuls and students interested in the elections to view. According to Johnson, it will be posted as a hard copy at 9 a.m. in the ASUO suite within the EMU.
