By Jaci Schneider, Opinion Editor
Last week, 286 freshmen, sophomores and juniors voted online for the first time for Students’ Association class senators. The executive officer election was supposed to be conducted online earlier this month but couldn’t because of technical problems.
Patrick Leech, elections chair for SA, said the e-vote was successful, in spite of a few technical problems.
“There are some things we could fix in the future,” Leech said, “but it went pretty well.”
Leech said the biggest problem with elections this year was awareness.
“I was trying to get e-vote working, so I wasn’t able to get people’s attention to actual voting,” he said.
The junior class elected Sarah Carlson as senior senator; the sophomore class elected Casey Bingham, John Gainer, Eric Lemmons and Andrew Tuegel; and the freshman class elected Alaina Bearden, Shelby Coates, Hillary Moore, Brandon Smith and Matt Greenburg.
Elizabeth Alvarez, chief communication officer for SA, said the online elections went well.
“There were a few small kinks in it,” she said, “but it worked.”
Carlson was the only student to run for senior class senator, but Alvarez said more students might run to fill the remaining four positions next semester.
“The seniors always seem to be a little less enthusiastic,” she said. Seniors and juniors can run for the remaining positions in the same elections as freshman senators, residence hall representatives and academic representatives, or they can have a special election. If the spots remain empty, students can complete a petition and ask Congress to vote them in.
Bingham said he is pleased to be elected a junior class senator, but he wishes more students had run.
“I’m kind of disappointed because there wasn’t very much participation,” Bingham said.
More students might run for junior class senator positions next fall because some juniors have applied for administrative offices. SA executive officers will finish interviews for those positions and appoint students to the positions sometime this week, Alvarez said.
Erin Dimas and Bob Parsons are running for chief development officer; Valerie Hanneken, Zach Tabers and Lauren Hart are running for chief communication officer; and Austin Brennen is running for chief financial officer.
