The Student Union is holding Special Elections to fill five empty seats in the Senate and two empty seats in the Union Judiciary. Interested candidates gathered at the Student Union Office to learn more about the positions on Thursday evening.
Elections will be held next Thursday, March 7, from midnight to 11:59 pm. Campaigning began at midnight Thursday, with 13 running for the open seats. No candidate announced their intent to run for Myra Kraft Transitional Year Program Senator.
For the Judiciary, seven candidates are running for two available Associate Justice seats. Jack Ranucci ’22, Rachel Sterling ’21, Adrian Orduno ’21, Trang Nguyen ’19, Shivam Nainwal ’22, Ian Duffield and Steven Luo ’21.
Nathan Sayer ’22, Jonathan Ayash ’22, Zhengmao Sheng ’22 and Nancy Zhai ’22 announced their candidacy for the Class of 2022.
For the two seats open for Class of 2021 senator, only one candidate, Nakul Srinivas ’21 is running.
And for International Student Senator, Yuechen Ta ’21 is running unopposed.
Linfei Yang ’20, the International Student Senator recently recalled from the Union—which is what caused the available seat—spoke about the upcoming special election. Yang said that the election was to find his “successor,” rather than to fill the vacant position. Yang also would not rule out the option of filing and appeal at the Judiciary, but said he’d be willing to assist the winner of the election.
During the interest meeting, Union Vice President Aaron Finkel ’20 spoke about the responsibilities of the Senate, saying, “The Senate is what you make of it, you are a community leader.”
“This is an opportunity to make a possible change for the future of this school. So take that responsibility seriously,” he continued.
The around 30 students interested in running for positions then went around and said their name, class year and favorite meme.
After the introductions, Finkel then explained more about the rules of campaigning. Students are not allowed to spend money on a campaign, nor are they allowed to “facilitate voting.” This means that they cannot have students log in on a device to vote, but they can encourage students to vote themselves.
Students can make free, online candidate websites, but the campaign is paperless, meaning students aren’t allowed to hand out flyers or posters. This is meant to keep all campaigns equal based on economic means, clarified Finkel.
Students cannot “dorm storm” or go into dormitory buildings and knock on doors to campaign. Candidates and supporters are also not allowed to make libelous or slanderous statements about others, according to Article 10 of the Student Union Constitution.
