Student Union (SU) fall senate elections were delayed by one week due to administrative issues related to WebSTAC programming. Elections were originally to be held on Oct. 21, but they were rescheduled to begin yesterday at 8 a.m. and end at 5 p.m. this afternoon.
“It’s not like we had some sort of insidious plan to disenfranchise people,” said junior Spencer Young, SU’s election commissioner. “Everything was set for Oct. 21, which was right before fall break, but the WebSTAC people were really busy and were unable to set up the voter site in time.”
Director of Student Records Susan Hosack, who organizes the elections on WebSTAC, said the SU request for elections came too late to accommodate the original date.
“They notified me a week before they wanted the real election, and the programmers were not available on that short of notice,” said Hosack. “Usually they tell us at the beginning of the semester [when they want the elections]. Had we known earlier, we could have done it in time.”
According to Hosack, it usually takes about one month from the time SU notifies her to organize the election on WebSTAC.
The perceived effects of the postponement are mixed. Incumbents and SU members believe this mishap can have a positive impact, or, at worst, no viable effect on the election.
“It hasn’t really affected my campaign at all,” said sophomore and incumbent senator David Hall. “I haven’t really done much of anything. I don’t think it really has impacted anyone-the ones running for reelection don’t seem to be bothered.”
“It will make for a longer campaign period, but I don’t believe it will have any drastic effects,” said SU President David Ader. “Hopefully it will give people more time to get to know the candidates.”
On the other hand, some new candidates for the one-year senate positions expressed frustrations with the delay.
“Because I was focused on campaigning for such a short period of time, it will be harder for people to remember me,” said freshman candidate Emily Ginsberg. “I put up posters and because they were up for so long, a lot of them were taken down. There’s no way to really tell how this will affect [the election]. I don’t really think it hurt my chances of winning because it happened to everyone, so it’s an even playing field.”
Young suggested that voter turnout will be higher with the new election date because the original election was scheduled for just before fall break, when many students leave campus.
“A lot of people leave town right before fall break, and so now that [the election] is in a normal week, we should get a higher voter turnout,” said Young. “More people will be able to vote.”
Junior Tony Zand, a new candidate, maintained the opposite opinion about the postponement.
“It was really annoying,” said Zand. “I think it will definitely affect voter turnout because no one knows when [to vote] anymore. I don’t think anyone knows when the election is at all.”
But, as Young asserted, the original date of the election was never officially announced.
“People didn’t know when the original election date was because we weren’t promoting the election yet, so people didn’t know it was changed,” he said.
Young said that the new date of the election was promoted through an e-mail announcement sent to all undergraduates, and candidate statements printed in Student Life. In addition, student voters could rely on information available on the SU Web site as well as candidates’ word of mouth.
Young discussed another positive element of postponing the election, citing that the delay will even out the term lengths of members elected in the fall with their spring counterparts.
It has yet to be determined whether this postponement of the elections will remain permanent.
“We’ve talked about pushing it back a little bit, but we always have to look at when fall break is, when Thanksgiving is, and when religious holidays are happening because we don’t want campaign periods to overlap with those, and we haven’t looked that far in advance yet,” said Ader.
Young reiterated that SU is undecided.
“We are open to suggestions,” he said.