2008 Woodie Awards
Senate elections loom
Justin Oswald
Issue date: 2/7/08 Section: News
02/07/08 - Next week's first round of Student Senate elections has all the makings of the "best elections ever," except for one missing ingredient: presidential contention.
"With your help we can make these the best elections ever," Cristin Langworthy, chairwoman of the Elections Committee, told senators at last night's senate meeting.
Langworthy has urged senators during the past few weeks to hype the elections and get their friends to run for positions or vote. Those efforts have been effective in bringing contention to the at-large seats, but have so far failed to produce an opponent for the Thomas Ahrens and David Bedard ticket. The last time a presidential election went unopposed was in 2004 when the Kevin Lopes and Brett Samuels ticket ran.
Ahrens and Bedard are seeking the presidential and vice presidential nominations respectively. Next week on Feb. 12 and 13, students will vote on academic college seats, at-large representatives and the presidential and vice-presidential candidates, which may now be unnecessary.
"Every so often there is a year where there are no groups outside the senate that are interested in running, and we have a lot of people [in senate] this year graduating. We have a young senate and people may not be ready to take that leadership role and want to work their way up," Langworthy said, explaining why there may be no other nominations.
An annual presidential debate scheduled for Feb. 11 - the night before first round elections - has already been cancelled. There will still be a question and answer session for presidential candidates on Feb. 26 in Memorial Union Atrium II.
Election policy states that the two presidential candidate sets that receive the most votes will move onto a final election on Feb. 27 and 28. That second round of voting will also determine eight on-campus and 12 off-campus representatives. All 42 senate seats are up for election.
The nominations for first round elections end today at 4 p.m. and platforms must be submitted by 5 p.m. Although only Ahrens and Bedard were registered at the time of publication, there does remain the possibility of write-in candidates.
"With your help we can make these the best elections ever," Cristin Langworthy, chairwoman of the Elections Committee, told senators at last night's senate meeting.
Langworthy has urged senators during the past few weeks to hype the elections and get their friends to run for positions or vote. Those efforts have been effective in bringing contention to the at-large seats, but have so far failed to produce an opponent for the Thomas Ahrens and David Bedard ticket. The last time a presidential election went unopposed was in 2004 when the Kevin Lopes and Brett Samuels ticket ran.
Ahrens and Bedard are seeking the presidential and vice presidential nominations respectively. Next week on Feb. 12 and 13, students will vote on academic college seats, at-large representatives and the presidential and vice-presidential candidates, which may now be unnecessary.
"Every so often there is a year where there are no groups outside the senate that are interested in running, and we have a lot of people [in senate] this year graduating. We have a young senate and people may not be ready to take that leadership role and want to work their way up," Langworthy said, explaining why there may be no other nominations.
An annual presidential debate scheduled for Feb. 11 - the night before first round elections - has already been cancelled. There will still be a question and answer session for presidential candidates on Feb. 26 in Memorial Union Atrium II.
Election policy states that the two presidential candidate sets that receive the most votes will move onto a final election on Feb. 27 and 28. That second round of voting will also determine eight on-campus and 12 off-campus representatives. All 42 senate seats are up for election.
The nominations for first round elections end today at 4 p.m. and platforms must be submitted by 5 p.m. Although only Ahrens and Bedard were registered at the time of publication, there does remain the possibility of write-in candidates.