SAMANTHA BLONS
News Assistant
Next Wednesday was supposed to mark the first day of the SGA mid-term special election, in which students would vote to fill vacant and SGA-appointed positions in the senate. However, when no students submitted applications for candidacy, the SGA Executive Board chose to cancel the scheduled election.
The two vacant outer dorm row senator positions will remain unfilled until next fall’s election, according to Ryan Harvey SGA vice president of administration. The three SGA-appointed senators, who would have been required to run for their offices in this election, will serve in their positions for the rest of the year.
Earlier this semester, after the initial SGA election left five positions vacant, elected senators nominated students to fill these positions. Junior Marcella Monroe and seniors Andrew Blackmon and A.J. Winger were appointed by the senate to fill these positions until the Nov. 15 special election, in which other students would have the opportunity to campaign against them.
However, when no students aside from these three senators turned in their candidacy packets, the E-Board cancelled the election.
“There’s no contested races, so no one’s going to lose,” Harvey said. “It would be wasting Information Technology’s time, as well as a large waste of student time, to hold this election.”
Junior Sen. Andy Canales authored two amendments that failed in last week’s SGA meeting that would have eliminated this type of election all together. Holding extra elections undermines the importance of the SGA voting process to the student body, and he said he is happy with the decision to cancel the special election, Canales said.
“I’ve talked to a lot of students about this, and I haven’t talked to one student who doesn’t agree with the notion that we shouldn’t have a special election,” Canales said. “These positions were vacant, and they’ve been filled by qualified students. The student body has proven that they don’t mind if those students serve their full term.”
Monroe, a Towers senator who was appointed in September, said she is relieved not to have to worry about the special election, although she has mixed feelings about the lack of student interest in applying for positions.
“I just hope it’s because students have been satisfied with our performance, and it’s not apathy,” she said.
In this special election, the student body was also supposed to vote to ratify a Constitutional amendment requiring future SGA presidents and executive vice presidents to have held previous offices on Pepperdine’s SGA. However, with the cancellation of next week’s election, the E-Board members chose to move this vote to the March election instead.
The amendment would allow only students with previous experience in SGA to run for these top two E-Board positions of president and executive vice president. If students had voted to pass the measure next week, students vying for these positions in the upcoming March 2007 election would be required to have previously held SGA positions.
“It’s not fair to announce [this change] in the middle of the term when people don’t have the change to get on SGA to get that experience,” Harvey said. “So if it passes in March, it’ll go into effect the next March [2008] for that election.”
11-09-2006
