On-campus political pundits missed out on the full range of student election fodder this year due to an unusual turn of events in the student government races. Sophomores and seniors opened their ballots Wednesday to find them unusually empty.
An apparent lack of interest in running for SGA has left the senior and sophomore classes with these holes on the ballots. The senior class had no official candidates for class president and two of the senate seats, and the sophomore class had no senatorial candidates.
SGA faced an uncommon problem last week when too few students showed up at the election meeting Wednesday, Sept. 7, the deadline to turn in election packets.
“We were shocked,” SGA President Mimi Rothfus said. “We don’t understand why this happened, because for two weeks before school started, the student executive board was meeting with students [and administrators], and we were encouraged.”
Following the meeting, the E-board scoured the constitution for guidance or precedents. “We had no idea what to do in this circumstance, so we looked in the constitution and tried to do what was closest to it, and after that it was just an issue of fairness,” Rothfus said.
Together with General Judicial Council Chair Matthew Hibbs, who is responsible for ensuring the constitutionality of SGA actions, the E-board decided to fill unclaimed seats by appointment. They cited the constitution’s instructions for filling vacant seats and a desire to treat the matter with fairness.
The constitution provides appointment as the procedure for filling vacant seats, which is generally only an issue when an elected SGA member must step down due to probation or personal reasons. This election’s unclaimed seats were not technically vacant until the election closed at 8 a.m. today due to the possibility of successful write-in campaigns. The E-board will follow the constitutional procedure for filling vacant seats by appointment for any seats still unclaimed.
The E-board has spent the past week thinking of students they would recommend to fill any vacancies. After the election, the members will vote to select an appointee for each vacancy. After being sworn in, the elected senate members must confirm the E-board’s appointments. Following the confirmations, the appointees will be sworn in as well. Members will be sworn in and appointees confirmed at the SGA retreat this weekend.
“I feel confident that the right people will be put in the positions. It’s not how I would have envisioned this week going, but we won’t let it make us start off on the wrong foot,” said Vice President of Administration Rachel O’Connor.
O’Connor and Hibbs spearheaded election planning this year, and their efforts to advertise the races for interested candidates went beyond even what was done in previous years. “[The lack of candidates] was troubling because we are so excited about the plans for the year,” O’Connor said.
Another possible solution would have been to extend the deadline to turn in election packets, but the E-board decided this would be unfair to the candidates who had turned in their packets on time. If the deadline had been extended, other students could have entered and run against those who had filed their materials according to the original deadline.
