Student Government Association is bringing out the voting booths again on Friday, April 5 for another election to fill the currently vacant senate seats.
Since the referendum to reduce the number of senate seats was rejected during the elections held on March 14 and 15, SGA is organizing another election to fill the empty senate positions.
Senate seats for all the colleges are up for grabs along with the positions of senators at large. President for the colleges of Music and fine arts, social sciences and business administration will be on Friday’s ballot as well.
“We’re pretty much going by the old constitution,” accounting sophomore and SGA Commissioner of Elections Nick Armstrong said. “Seats that aren’t filled will just have to be appointed in senate in the fall.”
Assistant Director of Campus Activities and SGA Adviser Courtney Williams said that it was important for the elections to take place sooner rather than later to ensure those running can get into place before the end of the semester.
But even though the timeframe was limited Williams said that the nine candidates running had time to get their names out there.
“We started the information meetings before spring break so they have been able to campaign,” he said. “A lot of them have been doing their campaign via social media so I’ve been seeing a lot of things on Twitter and Facebook.”
Now that the candidates have finished the last of their pre-election campaigning students will be headed back to the polling station. SGA President Khaled Badr said that he hopes that having the voting machines will help keep the voter turnout high. “You have people sitting at the tables encouraging people to come vote so that definitely helps getting more people to vote than Blackboard,” he said.
Williams also noted that he appreciated the SGA coverage and hopes that the students continue to stay engaged with the process.
“I will honestly say, no press is bad press. And the fact that we are being covered shows that we are clearly doing something to engage the students,” he said.
Hasani Grayson can be reached at [email protected]
