Last Sunday night, books closed for students to declare candidacy for Student Government positions, signaling the beginning of the Spring General Election. Campaigning will begin on Friday, Feb. 22.
Lilly Neal, a third-year studying psychology and chair of the Board of Elections, said that individuals who submitted Intent to Run forms have not yet been checked by Student Conduct and Academics. Names will not be disclosed by the Board of Elections until it has been verified that each candidate is qualified to be part of Student Government.
According to NC State Policies, Rules and Regulations 11.55.06, to be eligible for a Student Government position, students must be enrolled in at least 12 credit hours, have a 2.5 minimum GPA and have no active disciplinary sanctions. They also must adhere to leadership requirements, such as a mandatory attendance of 50 percent of Student Senate meetings, and participate in training activities.
When books closed at 11 p.m. on Sunday, three individuals had submitted an Intent to Run form for the position of student body president and three for student body vice president, which will appear on joint tickets. Additionally, two individuals submitted forms for the role of student body treasurer. The student body chief justice and Student Senate president positions are currently uncontested, with one person running for each.
According to Neal, it is common for the chief justice position to be uncontested; however, she said it was unusual for the Senate president role to be uncontested as well.
Student Senate election races for four colleges are contested. These include the College of Agriculture and Life Sciences, with nine people running for six seats, the College of Engineering, with 11 people running for nine seats, the College of Humanities and Social Sciences, with 18 people running for seven seats, and Wilson College of Textiles, with six people running for three seats.
Additionally, no student from the College of Design or the College of Education has submitted an Intent to Run form. This means that a student who wishes to run for a seat will need to be appointed by the Student Senate president and confirmed by the 99th Session Senate.
“We’ve seen the same kind of issue in the past, especially with the College of Education and the College of Design, and previously we’ve seen it in the college of textiles, but we surprisingly have a really good number of candidates running this year,” Neal said. “But, some of those colleges just historically have not been as involved in the elections process and in Student Government in general. We aren’t really sure why; I’d like to definitely look more into that and maybe talk to people that are in Student Government right now that belong to those colleges.”
Neal said that during the fall 2018 semester, the Board of Elections worked on outreach to colleges with lower representation to inform students about the opportunity, but historically, it is not unusual to have unfilled races.
Campaigning for spring Student Government elections will begin on Friday, Feb 22. All information pertaining to the Spring General Election can be found on the Student Government website.
