The Student Senate president and board of elections has begun to organize a special election for student body treasurer pending senate approval after John Taylor Willis, a third-year studying business administration and international studies, announced his resignation last Wednesday.

A special election has been planned for Nov. 20 to fill the student body treasurer position. According to Student Senate President, Mitchell Moravec, a fifth-year studying materials science and engineering and psychology, the date of the election will depend on the Student Senate passing the process at their meeting Wednesday.

“Basically at the next Senate meeting, Senate will be asked to approve the order for the special election,” Moravec said. “So outline some of the details of that, like timeline and kind of what the board will be doing. After that’s passed it will go into effect and we will start the elections process.”

Moravec said that he met with the Government Relations Oversight (GRO) Committee chair, Sen. Ryan Dunn, and the board of elections last week to discuss the logistics of the special election.

“When we have a special election, which we haven’t had in a while that I’m aware of, we kind of follow our statutes and our rules again,” Moravec said. “They outline some procedures that says ‘this is what we need to do.’ The board of elections already exists — they run our fall and spring elections and they will be running this special election.”

During this interim period the Finance Committee chair, Sen. Sean Harrington, a fourth-year studying political science, will serve as acting treasurer.

“My duty is to fill the vacancy left behind in the resignation until an election can be made, in which a successor to the previous chair will be elected by the student body,” Harrington said.

Harrington says that his main goal is to ensure a successful transition. 

“I’m going to be working to make sure that the transition between treasurers runs as smoothly as possible,” Harrington said.

Moravec said that Harrington will be working an interim role to make sure that student government internal spending and appropriations are done correctly. 

“When we work with financial procedures, we want to be really financially responsible, and there’s a lot of training into that,” Moravec said. “So we won’t be giving [Harrington] the full training, but our advisors will be stepping in and working with him, kind of just with what we need to finish up with the appropriations process and also with our ledgers.”

Moravec said operations within Student Government are still running properly and that everyone is working to finish the session strong.

“I want the students to be rest assured that we’re not at a loss right now,” Moravec said. “We are still able to operate and fully make sure appropriations are going out, student organizations are still getting their checks.” 

This election will run just as past elections have, per Moravec. 

“I encourage everyone to get out and vote and learn about the candidates to make sure we pick the best treasurer for the job,” Moravec said.

The Senate meeting to approve the elections process will be held on Wednesday evening at 7:30 p.m. in 4140 Talley Student Union.