After confronting an unprecedented lack of student government candidates, SGA has now filled the vacant seats of the student senate by a process of appointment.
The E-board gathered Sept. 15 after elections closed to discuss the six senate seats that had yielded no official candidates. A small number of write-in votes complicated the process, as there was no clear student choice from write-ins. They turned to the constitution for a process for filling vacant seats, which usually is a problem only after a senate member leaves SGA well into the academic year.
“Basically what we had [for the senior senate election write-ins] was one person with quite a small number of votes, and then there were about seven people tied with two votes. It was a pretty ugly situation, because that does not represent the student body,” said General Judicial Council Chair Matthew Hibbs, who has the responsibility of checking SGA’s actions against the constitution.
Per the constitution, “candidates who had write-ins have to win by plurality, defined as an excess of votes or the person with the most votes in an election. We struggled with that because it was a little bit vague,” Hibbs said. He indicated that SGA intends to clarify this language in the constitution this year by adding a required percentage of votes for write-in candidates to win.
To settle the ties for the second seat, the E-board considered holding a run-off, but there would not have been time for this due to the constitutionally required SGA retreat the weekend following elections. All SGA members are required to attend the retreat, so this presented a problem for potential run-off candidates who would not have yet been officially chosen for office.
To be fair to the candidates with so few votes, the E-board decided that appointment was the most constitutional method for completing the senate. Appointment by the E-board and confirmation by the senate is the constitutionally provided process for filling vacant seats.
The appointed members were Lauren Kliest (senior class president), Jazmyne Sutton and Jordan Womack (senior senators), and Melissa Carr, Keb Doak and Matt Scherffius (sophomore senators). The elected members questioned the E-board extensively regarding each appointee before confirming them.
At the retreat, SGA President Mimi Rothfus immediately addressed concerns about perceived inequality between elected and appointed members. “The first thing that I said was, ‘It doesn’t matter how you got here. You are all representing your classes. You need to remember that you’re all working toward a common goal and representing the student body,’” she said.
After the decisions had been made, Rothfus expressed faith in the appointments and in the personal dynamic of the membership. “I was very confident with those who I nominated, because I had given it a lot of thought,” she said. “After hearing descriptions of the other nominees from the other E-board members, I was really confident in them as well. The right people were appointed, definitely.”
Hibbs ultimately expressed satisfaction with the E-board’s decision. “I struggled with the decision because we did follow the constitution all the way down to a dead-end road. We had to interpret it as best as we could. I think that they made the best decision possible for the student body.”
