Errors contained within the Senate Campaign packet caused miscommunication and may have misinformed the public and potential candidates.

According to the scheduled time line distributed in candidate packets Sept. 11 and 12, the tentative publishing date for names of all senate candidates was Monday, Sept. 17.

By that time, qualification checks would be performed, ballot order would be determined and typed and a ballot announcing the candidates would be posted in the SA office.

As of the end of the business day Monday, the official ballot was not posted. SA Speaker of the Senate Rob Batey pointed out that according to SA bylaws, the ballot would be posted Tuesday.

In the SA bylaws, Part II, Article VII, it is clarified that posting of the ballot happens on Tuesday; the distributed material, however, may have led candidates and students to believe the ballot would be released Monday.

Misconceptions

Upon investigation into the informational packet, other misconceptions also were found.

Other procedures were not followed, according to Part II, Article VII, sec. 2a of the bylaws.

Candidate meetings were held Tuesday, Sept. 11 and Wednesday, Sept. 12. These meetings were two weeks prior to the announced election dates of Sept. 25 and 26, rather than the three weeks, as specified. In addition, there was no informational meeting held on the Monday three weeks before.

Batey said he had not met all of the Election Board members, Tom Drysdale, Dan Berndt or Brent West.

“I can’t state [that] members of the board were not at the meeting,” Batey said.

The specified requirements and information sheet is also host to inaccuracy. It states candidates “must be enrolled for at least 12 credit hours as an undergraduate student and at least 9 credit hours for all other students.”

This, however, is proven incorrect, according to the SA bylaws in Part II article IV sec. 1a.

The information sheet states all undergraduate candidates must be enrolled as full time students, while the bylaws state they only need to be enrolled in this amount if they are running for executive positions. Any enrolled student can run for a senate position as long as they are in good standing.

SA Election Commissioner Sarah Roman was not available for comment due to other commitments Monday.