With the upcoming ASUSF Senate Fall Elections happening the week of Sept. 20, only ten candidates will be featured in the ballots, according to Hannah DeKay, chair of the Electoral Governing Board (EGB). EGB is a student-run organization responsible for coordinating senate elections.
Fall elections are held when positions are left open from the previous spring elections.
In addition to unfilled positions rolled over from the spring, DeKay said, “unfortunately we’ve had a lot of dropouts because of the new schedule change.” Senate meetings are held every Tuesday at 6 p.m. in the UC fourth floor lounge, but some former Senate candidates were unable to attend because of conflicts. “We’ve lost a lot of people because of that,” DeKay said, “last semester that was never a problem.”
Originally EGB had started out with 15 open positions, but now are up to 17 positions that need to be filled right away.
Polls will be open online from Sept. 20- 23. Students will receive a reminder email prior to elections.
EGB has four executive board members and the rest are at-large members.
Write-in candidates will also have the opportunity to be voted for their respective positions. Write-ins are students that failed to turn in applications on time but still wish to run for office. However, they do not receive special privileges as regular candidates. They are excluded from election publications or EGB sponsored activities.
Meet the Candidates will take place during Activity Hour, formerly known as Dead Hour, in Harney plaza from 11:45 a.m. to 12:45 p.m. on Sept. 16. Each candidate will be given two minutes to verbalize their statement. “Its their job to convince everybody why the should win that position,” DeKay said.
Candidates are expected to know all relevant information. “We try to walk them through it as clearly as possible, because if they miss a step they can be subject to a fine, a penalty or disqualification, which we definitely don’t want to do,” DeKay said.
Last year, about 20% of the student body voted last spring, a significant increase from the 4.9 percent in fall 2008.
To publicize elections and improve voting numbers, EGB has publicized more through the San Francisco Foghorn and USFtv, DeKay said.
As a private institution, “there’s not really a whole lot of communication between the student body and the administration,” DeKay said. “Student senate is the only way that students have at getting out their opinion.”
The ASUSF Senate President, Halimah Najieb-Locke, is granted a seat on the Board of Trustees as a non-voting member. “[She is] really the most direct member and only way that students can make a change around campus,” DeKay said.
Open positions include freshman, sophomore, junior and senior class representatives; school of arts and sciences representative, school of nursing representative, international student representative, LGBTQ Representatives, nontraditional age student representative, on-campus representative and students with disabilities representatives.
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