SA elections today
September 24, 2002
Today marks the beginning of elections for your new Student Association senators.
The SA will hold voting from 9 a.m. to 6 p.m. at DuSable Hall, the Holmes Student Center and Founders Memorial Library today and Wednesday.
Some students, like senior sociology major Renee Armstrong, still are undecided about voting.
“I haven’t thought about it, actually,” she said.
The senate is the legislative body of the SA, and also is the representative of the student body.
The senate has 40 seats to fill, with eight for each of the five districts.
However, that doesn’t mean that all 40 seats will be filled by the close of the election.
If a district has less than eight members running, the district cannot be filled. If there’s a district that isn’t filled, the unelected senators for other districts can run for appointment.
Appointment means that anyone who wants to run for an unfilled district can fill out an appointment sheet.
The newly elected senate then will elect and approve the senators-at-large.
After election, senators will be assigned to specific committees.
The five core committees include internal affairs, public affairs, finance committee, service committee and university policy.
One main problem the SA wants to fix this year is the number of student voters.
Regardless of the senators’ importance to the student body, the number of voters has been on steady decline the last couple of years.
Some students blame it on a lack of campaigning.
“If they give me a reason to vote, I will,” said Jonathan Hemm, a sophomore undeclared business major. “Otherwise, why should I?”
SA Vice President Jaime Garcia is confident about today’s campaigning.