Elections to be held week after spring break

Adriane Hardin

Candy, posters and promises.

It must be time for Student Government Association elections.

SGA is accepting applications from student leaders who would like a seat on SGA’s executive council.

Internet polling for SGA elections will begin at 12:01 a.m. on April 2 and last until 11:59 p.m. April 3.

But this year’s election will be a little different from previous years.

SGA Congress passed the 2003 election codes at Tuesday night’s meeting.

Among the changes: students and SGA candidates will no longer have to spend time voting and campaigning for primary elections. There won’t be primaries.

In the past, primaries were used to narrow heavily contested races down to two candidates. Those two candidates would then campaign for general elections.

“(Primary elections) seemed to be an exercise in redundancy because in recent years SGA has been lucky if it even gets more than one or two contested elections,” said Dana Lockhart, a former member of the judicial council who helped revise the election codes.

After controversy about elections being held during Greek week last year, SGA decided to move elections to the week before.

That also means elections will be held three days after students return from spring break. During their meeting, some SGA members debated as to whether these dates gave students ample time to become informed of the candidates.

Lockhart said election dates were agreed upon by the judicial council and Bradley on Feb. 13 and should not be changed because election dates had already been advertised.

Lockhart said this year’s election dates would ensure that SGA did not appear to be giving candidates who were members of Greek organizations an unfair advantage.

“It is important to note that this isn’t a negative bias towards Greeks,” Lockhart said.”(We are) trying to ensure that we have the most neutral, most fair and most successful elections for everyone.”

Lockhart said the judicial council had no other acceptable alternatives.

“With the way they scheduled Greek Week and spring break, we’re really choosing between the lesser of two evils,” he said.

The filing deadline for SGA elections is March 11. Students who are interested in running for an office should visit the SGA office in Downing University Center to learn more about specific requirements for each office.

Reach Adriane Hardin at [email protected].