Even as student senate
elections ended Friday, 14 seats remained open on the 77-member senate.
As of press time, seats were still open in Appalachian
Heights, off-campus and Newland, Justice, Doughton, and Winkler Residence
Halls.
According to SGA bylaws, students fill open senate
seats by petition. Once a senate seat is open after election, any
student, regardless of where they reside, may petition for the seat.
“Students have to wait five days to present
a petition of 100 signatures,” said Dino Dibernardi, director
of the Center for Student Involvement and Leadership and advisor to
SGA. “SGA randomly confirms that the signatures on a petition
are enrolled students.”
DiBernardi said students often turn in petitions and have them confirmed
before five days, but the seat will remain open through that time.
“Every single senator nominee that was called [Friday] that we
informed that did not receive a Senate seat was invited into the office
to get a petition and immediately get it out,” said Kevin M.
Turner, rules chair for SGA. “If we had filled every single seat
in the elections today, we still would have invited them in to get
a petition.”
Senate seats remain open due to a lack of candidates for off campus
or a given residence hall in the election or because candidates did
not receive the minimum 25 votes required to take office.
Seats can also open in the course of the year if a senator resigns
from office.
Turner said students had already returned several signed petitions
a few hours after SGA had sent them out.
“Petitions are filled solely on a first-come, first-serve basis,”
said Turner. “That’s the bottom line to the entire petition
process, we’re not saving a seat for anyone.”
“The number of open seats will be cut down very quickly,”
continued Turner. “I won’t say that we’ll have all
of them filled by the middle of next week [when SGA training begins],
but we should have most of them filled.”
While SGA cabinet members previously said they had received over 150
nominations and didn’t expect any uncontested seats in the elections,
the total candidates had dropped to 96 by the time voting began.
“I think it got to 150 [candidates] at one point,” said
Turner. “For various reasons it dropped to 96 because people
withdrew their name from the ballot, decided they didn’t want
to do it, or didn’t have a high enough GPA, or for various personal
reasons.”
The number of candidates represented a significant decline from last
year, when 166 candidates ran in senate elections, according to figures
from the Center for Student Involvement and Leadership.
Turner emphasized that it was typical to have open seats after an
SGA election.
“I wouldn’t say we have an abnormal amount of open seats
this year,” said Turner. “I think it’s obvious that
interest was high on campus. There were a lot of healthy, competitive
races.”
“Overall elections went very well,” continued Turner. “I
was very pleased at the results and I hope to see all, or as many
as possible, open seats filled by the first meeting.”
|
