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The fall elections for all vacant SGA positions are slated to take place next week between 8 a.m. Wednesday, Sept. 12 and 8 a.m. Friday, Sept. 14. The elections will be held online and will be preceded by a week of campaigning from each of the candidates.
There are 34 vacant positions this year — a higher number of empty seats than in past years.
“There are a lot of vacant positions for upperclassmen,” SGA President Andy Canales said. “We really hope enough students will run to fill all the positions.”
One of the factors that accounts for the increase in vacant positions is the addition of senators representing specific housing locations rather than entire classes, which is how the Senate was broken down in the past.
“As a senior there is still an opportunity to become active,” senior Reegan Cornwell said. She and senior Denni Harvey decided to run for senior senator positions after seeing the need for more upper-class candidates.
In an effort to drum up more attention, and potential candidates, for the quickly approaching elections, the SGA has set up a publicity table in the Cafe, ordered Facebook flyers and Canales has personally mentioned the importance of the elections in his e-mails to the student body.
“It’s a privilege to have the opportunity to vote for someone who will best represent you,” Canales said, adding that he hopes more students take advantage of that opportunity by casting their vote next week.
Students interested in running this fall were required to attend a special SGA meeting Wednesday night where they turned in their petitions (a list of supporters’ signatures), which will allow them to gain a spot on the official ballot. The night also served as a kick-off for official campaigning as candidates were allowed to commence their campaigns immediately following the conclusion of the meeting.
Despite the “mandatory” tag, only 34 students showed up, leaving several positions without a single potential candidate at the meeting. According to SGA Vice President of Administration Austin Maness, another 15 to 20 students thinking about running skipped the meeting in favor of Collide or various Greek recruitment events across campus.
“A lot of people have been very wishy-washy about whether they’re running or not,” Maness said.
The most prolific presence at the meeting was the numerous freshmen who came out in hopes of making a strong and quick impression on the student body and the school itself by being elected to office their first semester on campus. The common theme among the freshman candidates was the eagerness to run because of past student government experience in high school.
“I was heavily involved in student government in high school which meant I was involved in what happened there,” freshman senatorial candidate John Kempe said.
Kempe also said he is nervous about going out to campaign because the competition at the college level is much steeper than in high school — a fact not lost on the other freshman candidates.
“I decided to just jump in with both feet,” freshman Michael Evans said.
Evans, who is running for freshman president, plans to capitalize on the connections he has already made on campus as well as his unique nickname (his friends have dubbed him “Wolfman”) to separate himself from the pack come election time.
“I’m really excited to see the freshmen’s campaigns,” Canales said. “Most of the excitement comes from the freshman class because they’re more competitive and run very creative campaigns.”
Submitted 09-06-2007
MALIBU, CA
