News-Letter

The Board of Elections (BoE) has decided to re-open the candidate field for the upcoming Student Council (StuCo) presidential election, allowing all sophomores, juniors and seniors to run for the position.

The coming election, formerly a run-off between candidates Hyder Syed '06 and Soren Gandrud '05, who tied in the previous contest, is effectively a normal election, save for its change of date, which will allow seniors to run for the position.

Michael Seibert '06, chair of the BoE, wrote in an e-mail to the student body: "In this election only current sophomores, juniors, and seniors are allowed to vote.

"Since it is a new school year, the Board and the administration feel that the most democratic choice is to re-open the field of candidates to all sophomores, juniors, and seniors."

Candidates who ran in the previous elections will be allowed to run again as well, whether or not they won, dropped out or were disqualified from the race.

Seibert has cited several reasons for the re-opening of the candidate field, a decision he came to with the assistance of Jeff Groden-Thomas, director of Student Involvement.

"This is something we decided we should do because of the problems we were having with all the parties involved," Seibert said.

"Plus, it would be better if, since the candidates are worn out by the process, we could have someone who feels more enthusiastic running also."

He noted that two members of StuCo have already filed complaints with the BoE since the student body received notification of the change on Monday.

"We just made the decision," said Seibert. "I don't think there's anything in the [BoE] bylaws that says anything about this type of change. [Gandrud and Syed] may be upset about the issue, but I don't anticipate a major problem."

Gandrud said that the change itself has caused him frustration, and that it has only added to the overall exhaustion he feels about the campaign.

"This is not in the best interests of the students," Gandrud said.

"The longer StuCo is without a president, the longer it will take until things can get done," he added. "I don't see why this election should be opened up if it's a runoff in the first place."

He continued, "We played by the rules. The whole reason this is being done over is because of mistakes made by the BoE. We shouldn't be punished like this."

The mistakes Gandrud charged against the BoE refer to the period during the third presidential election at the end of last school year, during which the BoE Web site was down. This resulted in an invalidation of the election, postponing it until this year.

Syed said that he is unsure if he will continue his run for president.

"I haven't made a definitive decision yet," he said, "but I'm leaning toward not running. If I were to run, I would want to be able to commit my full attention to it and be able to really get some things done. But I have a lot of things on my plate right now.

"It's that and the fact that last year the elections weren't run very well -- a combination of the two -- that is pushing me in that direction."

Since the departure of last year's chairs, and since the start of this year, Seibert has been running the BoE without a staff, though he is assisted by Groden-Thomas. He expressed concern over this issue, and asserts that he is making efforts to increase the transparency of the group.

"Making the operation of the BoE an open forum would be difficult. We have private deliberations for the same reasons the [Student Activities Commission] does. But explaining our rationale for our decisions will help students understand why we do what we do," Seibertsaid.

He added, "A lot of the complaints in the past about the BoE have had a lot to do with a lack of communication between the students and the Board. We are trying to make the election process more open, with stricter guidelines for dealing with infractions."

Students wishing to run for president of StuCo must submit a candidate petition with 150 signatures. Petitions can be picked up at Candidate Information meetings either on Monday, Sept. 20 at 7 p.m. in Conference Room A, or Tuesday, Sept. 21 at 7 p.m. in the Sherwood Room of Levering Hall. They must be handed in at the candidate meeting on Sept. 27 at 7 p.m. in Conference Room A of Levering Hall.

A Candidate/Debate Forum will be held on Oct. 6 at 8 p.m. in the Sherwood Room, prior to the two-day election, which will take place from Friday, Oct. 8 at midnight until 11:59 p.m. on Sunday, Oct. 10. The election will be conducted online at http://www.jhuboe.org.

Article Tools