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SG e-board hopefuls unopposed in election

Only one slate is registered to run in the November Boston University Student Government election after the current executive board won running unopposed in April, Student Election Commission officials said.

Kerry Ford, SEC co-chair and School of Education sophomore, said confusion surrounding election timeline changes and whether or not the election was occurring in November might have caused slates to not run.

“There was a lot of confusion with the timeline changes and going back and forth, and that might have deterred some people,” she said.

BetterBU, the single slate, announced its candidacy at an official press conference Monday.

School of Management junior Aditya Rudra, the current executive vice president, is running as the slate’s presidential candidate. He is joined by Lauren LaVelle, executive vice presidential candidate and SMG junior, Justin Jones, vice president of finance candidate and SMG junior and Jasmine Miller, vice president of internal affairs candidate and a College of Arts and Sciences freshman.

SG voted in October to hold a special election in November. The elected executive board will serve a one-semester term and subsequent boards will serve May to May.

The current SG executive board was elected in April after running unopposed.

Originally, 30 people expressed interest in running, but in the end only one slate registered to campaign, said Tess McNamara, co-chair of the SEC.

“They [the slated candidates] seem to have a good hold on things, but obviously we’re impartial,” she said.

McNamara said that at this point candidates can run as write-in slates, but cannot attend official SEC activities. It is possible for students to campaign without going through the SEC.

McNamara said the SEC worked hard to make sure nobody was deterred from running for SG due to the timeline changes.

“I have to say that I am so proud of the Student Elections Commission because even with the whole timeline changes and the time crunches we have come out with our events the same way that we planned them from the start,” McNamara said.

Rudra said a major obstacle for prospective candidates is that the 2012–13 academic year election cycle is in the middle of the year.

“It’s hard to drop your obligations, your other leadership positions and say, ‘I’m going to run for SG,’” he said. “That’s something that will hopefully be fixed just by switching back to an academic year [timeline].”

Slate members often face obstacles in fundraising for campaigns, Rudra said.

“Long term, if we want to see fair and contested elections with the university … SEC should have a pool of money that exists only to distribute to the slates evenly,” he said.

Ford said she is hopeful that more slates will run in the spring 2013 semester, when elections are on an academic-year timeline.

“It will be an academic-year calendar so people can commit to it [running] in advance,” she said. “A lot of people were committed to prior clubs and activities that they had so it would be hard for them to drop that and take on this giant commitment.”

McNamara said she hopes in the future to increase communication between SG and the student body to increase student interest in running for executive positions.

“A big part of getting people to run for student government is having people informed on what student government does, benefits of student government and reasons why they should run,” she said.

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