As voting opens for the 2018 fall election, students are not only able to vote for senators running for a seat in their college, but also for a referendum that would include gender-inclusive pronouns in the Student Body Constitution.

According to Student Senate President Adam Schmidt, a third-year studying civil engineering, the referendum was originally up for vote in the 2018 spring election. However, only a little over 50 percent of students voted to make the change, which was not enough for the referendum to pass.

“To amend our governing documents, like our Student Body Constitution, we have to have a two-thirds vote for all the students that are voting in the election,” Schmidt said. “So, in the spring, 55.14 percent of students said yes they would like to amend the Student Government constitution to replace gendered pronouns and include gender inclusive pronouns in the constitution.”

The decision to include this referendum on the fall election ballot was made after a bill was passed during a Student Senate meeting at the end of last March.

“The decision was made in the spring by the last session of senate that they wanted [the referendum] to go up in the fall election as well,” Schmidt said. “And so, this is honoring the decision of the previous session made because they asked for this to be included in the election.”

Schmidt said that while the Student Senate can change the Student Body Statutes to include gendered pronouns, in order to change the constitution, the vote needs to be from the student body at large. All students are able to vote on the referendum, even if there is not a candidate running for a seat in their college.

“So internally, Student Government, we can change our statutes, we can’t change our constitution,” Schmidt said. “So, in the spring of last year, there was a bill that changed our statutes to use gender inclusive pronouns so in the majority of our governing documents, we already have replaced he/her pronouns with they/them pronouns.”

Schmidt also said that the purpose of the referendum is to be more inclusive to all students on campus.

“From what I understand, the goal is to be more inclusive,” Schmidt said. “And an easy way for us to do that is to get rid of gendered language in our governing documents.”

Voting for the fall election is currently open and closes Tuesday, Sept. 24 at 8 p.m. Results will be announced Tuesday at 9 p.m. Students can find more information about candidates on the student government website.