The SA Senate “election” begins today. But the choice of candidates that NIU students have this semester to represent them and decide how their money should be spent is akin to the “elections” held in the Soviet Union.

With the candidates that are on the ballot this week, voting in the SA Senate election is a waste of time. The senators for this semester are, for the most part, already chosen.

There is only one possible chance students have to stop the SA—the organization which represents NIU’s students and decides how to spend about $645,000 of student money—from being taken over by a predominantly greek coalition.

And that is to write, “Invalidate this election” in the write-in space on the ballot and put pressure on the administration—namely Jon Dalton, vice president for student affairs—to do just that.

Unless the “election” is invalidated, all of the on-campus candidates will be “elected” to office because only 15 candidates are running for the 16 on-campus seats.

But the situation is worse for the off-campus “elections.” Thirty-three candidates are vying for 32 seats, and 29 of the candidates are members of a greek coalition.

Unless there is a significant student outcry, the SA senate will be in the hands of the greek-interest group calling itself a “Coalition of Students for All Students” when the votes are tallied Wednesday night. But don’t let that name fool you, this coalition is not, by any means, representative of NIU. It is at best representative of one tenth of NIU’s student population because all but two of the coalition members are currently greeks.

Of the 33 off-campus candidates, only four are not members of the coalition. How can one interest group be guaranteed to hold a majority in a “democratic” election.

It’s disgusting that more non-coalition students didn’t petition to become candidates. Although student apathy is largely responsible, the blame does not rest entirely upon them.

The SA Senate’s two districts (on- and off-campus) are too general to represent the student population, and the system lends itself to greek manipulation.

Students living in the Greek Row area have different concerns, opinions, beliefs, lifestyles and attitudes than students living in other areas of DeKalb.

The current districts and “election” procedures must be changed. But after this “election,” change can only happen if the coalition decides to give up its power base, which it more than likely will not. The coalition will control almost two-thirds of the senate seats, and there is no telling when this control will end.

Students no longer can afford to be apathetic when their own government is threatened by this greek-interest group. Bring your schedules and student IDs and vote to invalidate this “election.”

Students should also let the administration know how they voted and ask for intervention if the SA Elections Commissioner Rob Perry, Phi Kappa Sigma member, chooses to ignore the students’ votes.